Naruto Different Upraising, Different Life
by PhilosopherofthePen
Summary: Naruto, instead of being raised in poverty, inherits his father's manor. Growing up, he learns to be more responsible, even in the face of adversity and hate. What changes will there be with this different upraising? Back on track, people!
1. Chapter 1: Destruction and Creation

The Kyuubi no Kitsune. Better known as the Nine-tailed demon fox by the population of Konoha. Everyone in Konoha feared this potent and powerful beast. It was more massive than any building in the hidden village and had more killing intent than the entire ninja population, and the raw power to back it up. To any mortal, rational thinking would tell one that this powerhouse was a demonic entity, hell bent on the destruction of mankind. Many people, who believed it to be a demon, called it a youkai. But it was no demon, or youkai for that matter.

It was an elemental essence. All of the tailed beasts were. They each represented a facet of nature, most commonly a natural disaster. They were extremely powerful, as the elemental forces of this world. But it is well known that power comes with a price, and they were packing power like no other living being. Tailed beasts had a unique difference beyond their various elemental abilities. They each had some sort of mental disability that was their great weakness.

Kyuubi no Kitsune, was the essence of the raging firestorm. A swing of one of his tails could make mountains crumble; trees uproot and topple from his sheer power. He held the greatest power of all the nine tailed beasts that had walked the earth since the beginning of time. The price for his power was worse than all the other tailed beasts; his curse was the curse of insanity. He was on a constant path of meaningless death and destruction that satiated his inane thoughts.

Thankfully, these elements were normally dormant. They slept for decades, or even centuries at a time, unbeknownst by the humans that took dwelling over the long-forgotten haunting grounds of these ancient beasts. They built gigantic cities and a myriad of towns, not knowing of the immense danger that slept. Kyuubi no Kitsune had been in its dormant state for over three hundred years before Konoha had even been built. However, with the ravages of war ripping up the countryside of the well-established Fire Country, the slumbering giant was woken from its long sleep.

Unopposed, Kyuubi no Kitsune, the fire fox elemental plowed through in a constant rage of insanity, wishing no more than destruction and obliteration of living existence. He followed the will of the fire: to consume until there is nothing more to consume. He destroyed countless small villages, the meager forces of local militia and the few local ninja proving trivial threats to this titanic monster. Nothing stood in his path until the day that his path put him on course with Konoha, the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

In this time, Yondaime Hokage no Konoha was the most powerful man in the world. He had put Konoha on the top of the ninja world, spreading the reputation of the feared "Yellow Flash". He was unstoppable in combat. In any battle that he appeared in, his forces would win, no matter what the odds. He lived for the survival of Konoha, and devoted himself almost single-mindedly to that task. Every child in the village idolized him, wanting to grow up to be just like the great ninja. He had the perfect life.

But what was to happen, to change Konoha forever, was completely unknown to anyone. Fate was mysterious, and impossible to predict for even the wisest of people. He was doomed to die. He was needed to die, for the good of creation. His noble sacrifice was necessary in order to create the greatest ninja in history. The saddest part of it all was that no one knew of what was going to befall the beloved "Yellow Flash" of Konoha.

The Kyuubi Kitsune was no more than ten miles away from the city of Konoha. Sentries of Konoha had noticed the beast from twenty miles further back, giving them ample time to alert the village and organize the forces. The war council, headed by Yondaime Hokage, had decided to use the majority of the force in a concentrated assault against the beast. They didn't concentrate more than two thirds of the forces on it though, requiring the remaining third to hold off the beast to prepare if the main group failed. Hundreds of ninja, the body of the main force, stood tensely, waiting for the signal to attack.

The Yellow Flash stood in the war room, pacing back and forth at the head of the table. The heads of the major clans: Inzukuza, Aburame, Uchiha and Hyuuga held chairs. The heads of the other major departments: Hospital, Police, and ANBU also had seats at the table. The Uchiha head was also the head of the Konoha police force; so one less chair was required. Everyone frowned deeply at the pernicious situation that was placed before them.

"This plan is foolish" young Hyuuga Hiashi, head of the powerful Hyuuga clan, growled, "It risks too much. If they fail-"

"What other choice do we have, Hyuuga-dono?" The Uchiha representative said, cutting in. The old man was no longer a ninja, after many hard years of work for Konoha, but he still ran the clan as well as the Konoha Police force. "It is nearly unstoppable. Our strongest ninja would not even be able to face it alone! Only through the coordination of all our forces do we even have a chance of saving this town from annihilation!"

The group murmured at the strong words that came from the ancient man. They all knew that he had a point.

"We are putting too much faith in one thing!" Hiashi replied angrily "We have no guarantee that this will even work! The majority of my forces, the members of the Hyuuga Clan, are useless! They cannot hope to hurt a beast made purely of Chakra with Juuken! To think that is madness!"

"You are not the only one useless in this matter, Hiashi-dono." The Konoha Hospital head replied "The medical offensive jutsu are designed for human physiology, just like yours are. We have no hope of hurting it. But we shall serve in other ways."

"Shall the Hyuuga cower away like dogs, then?" Hiashi turned sharply upon the new voice "We hold a large some of this village's power! For us not to be used for combat purposes would be a heavy blow indeed! Konoha would be obliterated without our assistance!"

The group dissolved into angry chattering as the desperate forces panicked. This threat was like no other force they had ever faced, and they were at a complete loss on how to fight it. Their despair at their powerlessness, and their fear of the unknown, quickly dissolved into futile rage at the situation!

"Stop this bickering!" a new voice came out from the doorway. Sandaime Hokage, now Sarutobi Asuma, stood in the doorway. He was well into his forties, which was old for a ninja. His hairline was receding, but his hair had not completely turned white yet. He was old, but no weakness showed through his ancient and wise eyes. Streaks and dots of black broke the hair upon his head. In his arms, he held various scrolls, each heavily sealed with powerful and ancient techniques deemed too dangerous for public knowledge.

"Yondaime-sama" He said, quickly turning and bowing his head towards the current leader of Konoha. "I brought the supplies you asked for."

"Thank you, Sarutobi-sama" Yondaime Hokage said, his young but troubled face frowning in thought at the new development as he took it into account "Are the other preparations made?"

"Yes. Your son has been prepared with the seals, spiritual mediums and the conductive elements to make sure that this works." He paused for a second, apparently feeling uneasy about what he was doing "Are you sure that you want to do this to him? Naruto is your son. By doing this, not only are you depriving him of the last of his family, your actions will appoint him with a task that is thankless. The villagers will see him as the beast."

The Yellow Flash sighed. During the wars with the other countries, he had always been sure. His quick decision-making had given him everything he had ever wanted. He was the Hokage, and Konoha was in peace. But then he met _her_… and he was never sure about anything else again. With his loss of decisiveness, everything had fallen apart. He had to hide from the village his love, and the birth had only complicated it when the only woman he had ever loved had died. But it had gotten even worse when the Kyuubi appeared. He was about to lose everything else as well.

It wasn't meant to be this wayHe thought to himself furiously. If only he had been better, worked harder, then none of this would have happened.

No, he decided, it was meant to happen. Fate worked in mysterious ways, but everything always turned out for the best eventually.

Looking up from his thoughts, he frowned. "Yes, Sarutobi-sama, I am ready," he turned to the men sitting at his war-room council, who were completely bewildered by the turn of events "I guess it's time to tell you the real plan. Rest assured, Konoha will not be destroyed tonight, or anytime soon. I will see to that personally."

The heads of the boards beamed, relieved at their leaders assuring words. They trusted the Yondaime. He made Konoha the strongest village in history through his efforts, and had kept it that way through blood, sweat, and tears. He always acted honorably and selflessly. He was a true hero, unlike any other ninja that had ever walked the earth. If anyone could defeat the Kyuubi no Kitsune, it would be him, they believed with all their hearts.

"But the power required of what I am about to do comes with a price, a very great one indeed.." Yondaime slouched, his face turning into a deep frown, showing the weight of his situation to the board heads. They looked at him, puzzled at what his words meant. "I must open all eight of the gates." With his pause, the board was shocked. They began to talk frantically, hoping to convince him of another way. But he cut them off almost immediately.

"But that's not all. I was hoping I could just use an amplified sealing jutsu to pull him into hell along with me. But that won't work." He paused for him to gather to gain the strength to continue telling the dangerous path he would have to tread to save his beloved village from destruction at the hands of one of the strongest beings in existence.

"The nine-tailed fox is the strongest of the nine tailed beasts. Even up to the eight-tails, it can be sealed into items, and be buried eternally. But the difference between the eight-tails and the nine-tails is too great. To ensure that it is sealed away for all eternity, I have to seal the Kyuubi into a human. A newborn whose chakra coils have not developed to be exact. From there, the chakra of the Kyuubi will intertwine with the child, meshing the two together inseparably. It will live with the child, and it will die when the child finally dies." He paused one last time, gathering more strength for the last, most dreaded words, "The boy that will be used for this sealing will be my son, Naruto, who was born three days ago."

The department council broke into chaos once again at the Yellow Flash's words. Even though they were leaders of powerful branches of ninja, they had never known anything about Yondaime's son. They didn't even know that he was having a romantic relationship with someone. Almost every woman in the village had a crush on him, and wished that they were with him, and some claimed that they were, but there never any evidence to point towards that conclusion. Everyone had just surmised that the Hokage was the loner type, and would never get involved with a woman. Evidently, they were wrong.

"But, Hokage-Sama!" the ANBU head broke in "You have a son?"

"Yes, ANBU-taishou." Yondaime replied, showing how tired and weary he was through his voice, "He was born three days ago. On October the tenth. However, his mother…" the Yellow Flash paused, clearly upset at what he knew he had to say "His mother… died in childbirth."

"So, to conclude what I am saying here, I will die stopping the Kyuubi no Kitsune." Yondaime smiled and stopped pacing "Goodbye, my comrades and my friends. Maybe in the next lifetime, we will be able to meet again, in more peaceful times."

But before he could leave, another person ran through the doorway. He wore a black ANBU-like outfit. However, the suit had sleeves, striped black and orange. On his hands he wore gloves with the iron backing. However, unlike the usual gloves, the metal extended along the fingers as well. His hair was reddish black, which came down past his eyes in front, and culminating in a long ponytail in back. As for armaments, he wore his Kodachi on his right hip. On his left hip, he bore his kunai pouch.

"Arashi" the man said, breathing heavily. It seemed that he had sprinted all the way to the Hokage tower as fast as his body would let him. He took a few seconds to catch his breath before continuing "I just heard… Don't do it!"

Uzumaki Arashi, better known as Yondaime Hokage or the Yellow Flash, turned. "Kana. You know I have to do this. If I don't, the whole village will suffer from my selfishness. The Hokage is meant to give his life for the people, Ashiya-san."

"Please don't, Arashi! Think of me and Kaida" Kana said, "We're your teammates! Let us do it for you! You don't have to die now!"

"I have to do this, Kana. No one else can do it. It's the Hokage's responsibility, and the Hokage's alone to take care of things like this." Arashi smiled at his friends determination "I'm sorry, Kana. Please take care of Naruto for me."

And with those final words, Arashi disappeared in a blinding flash of yellow light, the same light that had mad him famous in countless battles.

Kyuubi no Kitsune, the fire fox demon, plowed his way through countless Konoha ninja, pressing inexorably towards his target. Even the full might of Konohagakure could not stand up against the terrifying beast.

Dozens of ninja at a time unleashed their most powerful techniques, which only slowed it down. Sometimes it would stop and lash out with its tails. It would cut through trees and obliterating ninja indiscriminately, causing more destruction and chaos. The great power of the beast was destroying the morale of the troops. Many ninja threw themselves against the beast. But still some began to flee, believing that a dishonorable life was better than an honorable death.

Seeing this, the Jounin lieutenants began to try and rally the troops. "Hold the line!" They cried "We only need to hold it off until the Hokage gets here! If we don't stop it here, it'll kill everyone in the village. Just hold until the Hokage gets here!" Bolstered, the troops threw themselves once more into the fight.

The forces were decimated. They had held out for a couple hours, but now there were only a few left. These were the few that were strong enough to keep avoiding the Kyuubi, and didn't abandon the cause. But still their spirits were down, and it was all they could do not to run from the battle. Only a miracle could save them now.

And a miracle did come. With a loud bang and a puff of smoke, the Yellow Flash appeared in front of the Kyuubi no Kitsune. He was standing on top of Gamabunta, the frog boss.

"It's the Hokage!" The ninja cheered before backing off. They knew that a titanic confrontation like this would need room. They backed off to a safe distance, making sure that they would have a view of the fight that was about to start.

Arashi smiled, taking in the lay of the land, and everything he could see. He knew that this was the end, and there was no coming back from this. He made his peace with the world before continuing. Then he looked up from his position. "Zesshou Hachimon Hōgeki no Jutsu!" he growled, releasing all of the gates in a rapid succession. His body gathered so much energy that his body turned into pure energy. He glowed a faint yellow, reminiscent of his hair.

The Kyuubi growled, finally realizing the threat of the newcomer. It paused from its path to Konoha and turned to face the new development. It growled in a low tone, its hair bristling as it felt the pure, concentrated chakra coming off the new enemy. It knew that this opponent was a real threat, and was afraid. Nothing was truly meant to surpass the power of the Kyuubi, the greatest elemental being out of the nine tailed beasts.

The Yellow Flash charged forward with all his strength, throwing a seemingly endless amount of kunai at the massive tailed beast. It laughed as the kunai barely hit his skin. But that wasn't all the fourth Hokage was planning to do.

He rapidly made the proper seals, then yelled with all his might, "Hirashin no jutsu!" And he was instantly summoned to each of the kunai. In the tiny fraction of a second, he placed two seals wherever a kunai touched the Kyuubi. The nine tails was no longer recognizable as a fearsome fire fox. To tell the truth, it looked more like a mummy from one of those horror movies. The only difference was that the nine tailed fox was still extremely dangerous.

Pulling up more energy, Arashi pushed away from the massive elemental beast, flying miles away in less than a second. He stopped in midair, and sent all that colossal energy back at the monster in the form of his fist, flying back. His movement caused a sonic boom, and blinded all of the watching ninja with a flashing light. However, the Kyuubi was expecting this and blocked with its tails. It took all of its nine tails to stop the one attack. But he was already gone. He flew about, nothing more than a flash of light followed by a shockwave. He attacked relentlessly, never giving up on the onslaught. The Kitsune barely kept itself together, trying to black all of this opponents attack.

From the direction of Konoha, an Orange flare rose into sight. It was the sign that the final preparations of the sealing chamber were complete. Grinning grimly, Arashi moved onto the next part of his mission.

Jumping onto the demon fox's nose, he began to make hand seals, so quickly that no eyes could truly follow. Stopping after a brief second, he cried "Shiki Fūjin!". Behind him appeared the Shinigami, in its terrorizing, ogre-like image. The contract was made, and there was no going back now. Stabbing its arm through Arashi's heart, his soul was sacrificed.

Using the ghostly arm coming out of him, Arashi pulled the Kyuubi no Kitsune's soul out of its body. The body collapsed to the ground, shriveling up as the chakra that kept it in existence was gone. Before Arashi could fall to the ground along with his foe, the Shinigami removed his soul. His body fell to the ground, disintegrating as the damage of opening all of the Eight Gates took its toll.

The Kyuubi's soul was now out of its body, completely unprotected from corporeal chakra influences. He felt a tug as his soul was dragged towards Konoha at an alarming pace. He shot over the Great Wall that surrounded Konoha, over many houses. He drew towards the Hokage tower, and was pulled inside. He entered a room with ritual seals in place.

Inside the circle of candles was a young child. He was newly born, no more than a few days old. Even so, he still had a respectable head of hair. It was a strong yellow color, much the same of his father, the Kyuubi's recent opponent. Upon his stomach was a spiral pattern. Inwards Kyuubi was drawn, into the boy through the spiral shape. In a matter of seconds, his whole being was inside the boy, trapped there, terminally. He knew that it was permanent, and he screamed in fury. But no one could hear him, because he was sealed inside the small Uzumaki Naruto.

A.N. – Well, this is the first chapter. It is a bit long for my usual writing, but I feel that it is not long enough. I'll probably go back and make it longer. I'm trying to use only Canon characters. The only OC's will be Kana and Kaida. They, if you didn't notice, are Arashi's teammates, and will take a significant role in Naruto's life.

As for pairings, I don't really care, as long as they're Het. I'm not too good at romance; so don't expect a skilled romance. I'll work hard on it, whoever you guys choose, though. Please review, and give me your ideas for pairings. After a while I'll put up the ones I think need a more serious vote upon. Pleease review! Reviews make me write more, and make me happy! Later!

Edit: Well, I am starting to go back and edit the beginning chapters. I wasn't really happy with how they turned out, so I decided to go out and improve them. I'm working my way up the chapters, and the process shouldn't last more than a couple of days. Sorry for any mistake made by people who have already read, and thought that there was a new chapter. For anyone who is reading this for the first time, I edited the fight scene between the Kyuubi and the Yondaime, fixed spelling and grammar. Also, I gave more details within various parts of the stories.


	2. Chapter 2: Return to Konoha

Five Years Later…

Ashiya Kana had finally returned to Konoha. But even so, he was still regretting his decision. After Yondaime no Konohagakure's death, he had wanted to avoid the place. Arashi was the only family he had really had, and when that bond was broken, he drifted away. He hadn't even stayed for little Naruto. He knew that the boy would be fine. He was left the Uzumaki Manor, and all the loyal servants that kept the house together. He had felt it more important to leave Konoha to strengthen his resolve after his best friend's death. Now that he was satisfied that his self-searching was complete, he had returned to Konoha.

Just that morning he had caught sight of the great wall that surrounded and protected Konoha from most threats. Besides the Hokage Tower, it was one of the oldest buildings still in Konoha. Ordered by the Shodaime Hokage of Konoha, the founder of the powerful village. It had weathered countless wars, as well as the ultimate test; the passing of time. Many parts were replaced from the original design, as damage was caused, but it still kept pure to the design on the whole. Back in the days before electricity was a common use in villages, it took twenty fully-grown men to open and close each one of the gates every day.

But he was not here to take in the exquisite sights of Konoha. He had some very important business that he needed to take care of, and even though it had waited for five years, he was determined that it would not wait another day. He was on an important mission. This mission was his last mission that he had had from Konohagakure.

(Flashback)

_Please don't, Arashi! Think of me and Kaida" Kana said, "We're your teammates! Let us do it for you! You don't have to die now!"_

"_I have to do this, Kana. No one else can do it. It's the Hokage's responsibility, and the Hokage's alone to take care of things like this." Arashi smiled at his friends determination "I'm sorry, Kana. Please take care of Naruto for me."_

(End Flashback)

He had tried to stop his best friend from getting himself killed, but his old Uzumaki friend was too headstrong. Kana had offered his own life in place of Yondaime Hokage's, but Arashi was determined that self-sacrifice was the only option he had to save the village. When the smoke from the battle cleared, there wasn't even a body left for the village to mourn for. With this, Kana and Kaida left. There was no reason for them to stay. They never had any real attachments with the village beyond Arashi. All that was left for them were bad memories.

Kana and Kaida had gone their separate ways, not even bothering to say goodbye to each other. They had drifted around the world, attempting to forget about their lives in Konoha, and move on from the bad memories. Kana had lasted five years, trying to drink away his time in Konoha in the famous breweries of Rock Country, the home of some very potent alcoholic drinks. He honed his skills by taking mercenary missions whenever he needed money to pay for more of the powerful booze. His hair, once reddish black, was grey, streaked with white from all the stress he had put himself through. He was only thirty, but he looked forty at the very least.

But even the massive physical abuse he put his body through would not stop him from remembering his friend's last words to him… "Please take care of Naruto for me." He and Kaida had been witnesses for the secret wedding, as well as the knowledge of the conception of the child, which he asked them to keep quiet about. Arashi had not wanted people to know about his wife, especially after she died in childbirth. Respecting their friend's wishes, they had kept silent. But he knew what Arashi's words meant. They had stuck with him, and he was never able to shake them. He held off his guilt with alcohol for five years before finally caving in to his friend's wish. He sobered up, and headed back to the village of his bad past, worrying about what he would find that would remind him of that day, five years ago.

Ashia Kana had made violent changes in his appearance in the five years away from Konoha. His hear, once reddish black, was streaked with white. A Katana now replaced his Kodachi. Still wearing his black and orange and black striped shirt, he now wore an almost crimson purple overcoat. His gloves, once smooth and free of damage, were worn and frayed, and even missing the metal backing in some parts. Where once the energetic grin of a dreaming and youthful man was pasted on, was a blank face with eyes that showed how much pain and sorrow he had experienced. He might have been only five years older, but his mind had aged much more with all the adversity in his life.

He approached the guard that was manned at the gate for arrivals and departures into and out of Konoha. He was an old, bearded man, obviously taken off active combat mission duty rather than retiring, spending the rest of his days at a desk job. Nonetheless, he wore a pale green Jounin jacket vest, and was probably a pretty good fighter, even in his old age. Kana knew that Konoha was in a peacetime situation, so there would be no threat from the village yet. But one didn't become a kage-level ninja by not being careful. Sensing no malicious intent from the other man, Kana approached the booth. The old man looked up from his reports on entries and exits for the day to work with this newcomer. He made eye contact with Kana, beaming.

"Welcome to Konohagakure, sir." He said, his voice scratchy and wheezy, yet still pleasant overall. "Before I can let you in, I will need to get some information from you. It's for security, and making sure that your stay in Konoha will be peaceful, and to protect you from any possibility of danger here."

"Very well," Kana said, addressing the man in a calm and even tone, showing no outward emotion. "I have nothing I wish to hide" '_Except from myself_' he thought.

"Okay, then let's get this over with!" The old man said. Even though the old man had barely spoken to him, he liked this man. He was direct and honest. Most other people were upset that they had to go through this. Deep down, he knew that this man was a good person. He pulled out another entry sheet from the desk drawer. "What is your name, along with all hidden village affiliation through your personal experience?"

"My name is Ashia Kana. For the past five years, I have been working as a mercenary for clients in Hidden Rock." Kana paused a second to let the old man catch up on the information "Before then, I was a Konoha ninja."

The man frowned, apparently not happy with the answer he had gotten. In an instant, the man disappeared. Holding still, Kana waited patiently. It was not long before the old man reappeared behind him, a kunai to his throat. "Five years means a deserter.

Kana had known about this little trouble. Konoha had been hunting down all the deserters for abandoning the Yondaime. The public didn't know that the Yondaime's life was given, rather than taken by force, so they blamed the deserters for the death of their leader. Many missions were funded personally by the Konoha Commoner Council, the group of civilian merchant and service elite that put funding behind Konoha by sponsoring missions that they believed in. They had ordered over a hundred missions to capture deserters they had discovered. Sandaime was angry with these deserters, but didn't go after them like the Konoha Commoner Council, and only incarcerated any inside the village, or brought to him by the Council.

The man looked at Kana with disgust. "How could you desert the Yondaime when he needed you the most? In the battle with the…" The old man paused.

Taking this pause for forgetfulness, Kana decided to finish the man's sentence for him "The Kyuubi no Kitsune?" The old man pressed the kunai deeper into Kana's throat, apparently agitated at the words.

"Yes." The man replied. He loosened slightly from Kana, but never removing the kunai from his throat. "As per protocol, I am to take you to the Hokage, who will decide your fate. Please do not resist. That will only make your sentence worse."

"I have no intention of resisting." Kana replied calmly "I have business here, and I believe that I need to take care of this problem here before I will be allowed to continue on my way. Please lead, sir. You will have no trouble from me."

Even though he was cooperating fully, the old man could not trust him. He was a deserter after all. After binding him with chakra-enforced rope, and placing a chakra seal on Kana's neck, the old man felt satisfied enough to proceed, making their way to the Hokage's tower. Built almost right after the completion of the Hokage's Tower, gate had a direct pathway to the Hokage's tower, leading down the main street in Konoha towards the massive building. As Kana looked at the shops to his left and right, he was relieved that he recognized none of them. Apparently, to him, in the last few years, the property has changed hands enough that the whole street would be unrecognizable from what it was when he had last been here.

He was glad that all the old shops were gone. He wanted to make a fresh start here, if he was going to stay, and having a constant reminder of his past life here would only bring him trouble. But even so, he still felt a little sad that those parts were gone. To him, they were little pieces of a great mural created in homage of Arashi. Still, he knew that it was more important to keep the present in focus rather than dwelling in the past. Dwelling in the past only caused pain and damage. If one did not move forward, they would surely die.

As they made their way towards the tower, people noticed that Kana was bound and sealed, as well as led by a gate guard. Many in the streets knew what that meant; to them it meant that he was considered a criminal against Konoha. Knowing this, they gave him dirty looks, and got out of the way of the criminal and his escort to the Hokage's tower. Kana got very uncomfortable from all the malicious energy that the crowd was exuding, directed at him and him alone. He tensed up; he was worried that one of the people would try to jump him. It seemed to him that Konoha residents had gotten a lot less friendly since he had left, and a lot less empathetic as well.

Finally, they made it to the grounds of the Hokage's tower. The hurting intent from the population stopped as they saw that he was to be put on trial. They saw that he was to be punished, and their angry attitude was satiated. A small wall, no more than ten feet high was placed around the tower, which had a gate built in to the front. This was a new addition from after he had left Konoha. With his fear of memories returning from visiting all these places, Kana noticed all the differences, being very sensitive to the changes that helped hide his memories of the past.

Once inside the wall, two ANBU seemed to appear out of nowhere in front of Kana and the old man. One wore a dog mask; the other one wore the squirrel design mask with spirals on the cheeks. "Atsuma-san, we can take it from here." The one on the left said. This one was the one that had a dog mask, and had long, silver hair. "Hokage saw Kana-san coming. He wishes to have a word with him."

Bowing, Atsuma replied "Hai, ANBU-sama. I'll return to the gate. I have work to take care of." With that, the old man turned around, and headed down the road, back to his post at the gate.

Kana grinned. He noticed who the dog-masked ANBU was. "Hey. Long time no see…" Kana said almost casually. The young ANBU member froze for less than a second, but it was more than enough to confirm it.

"Kana-san" the ANBU Captain said. "We are to take you to Sandaime Hokage. He wishes to have a few words with you."

"Yeah…" Kana replied, "I'd bet that he would. I'd like to have a little catch-up session, anyways."

It was eerily silent as the ANBU member and the captain through the dimly lit winding halls that constituted the Hokage's tower led Kana. When it was originally built, it was designed during wartime, so they made the tower as convoluted and mysterious as possible, attempting to slow down the would be assassin until some ninja came along to deal with the threat. Anyone who had spent much time in the building easily made their way through, having memorized all the true paths to the archival records, the Hokage's office, and the guard stations. Kana knew his way through this building well. His best friend was the Hokage before he died, and spent much room in the long and winding halls.

Memories flooded his mind of all the missions he had take during Arashi's rule. The Yellow Flash was often gone, dealing with an invasion from another country, and he would leave him his instructions in a red scroll at the head of the desk. He had to take multiple missions in a trip, sometimes taking on multiple S-rank or higher missions. He remembered when he was ordered to eliminate the opposing village's elite Jounin squads, units similar to ANBU. That was four triple S-rank missions in a row, and had taken him almost three years to complete. Kana was surprised that the memories were slowly hurting less and less as he remembered more and more about his previous stay in Konoha.

After making their way through the halls and once-secret passages that used to constitute the defense of Hokage Tower, they made it to the waiting room just outside of the Hokage's personal office. Two more ANBU, both wearing raven masks, and hooded cloaks guarded the grand, leaf green doors that separated the office from the outer room. The ANBU at the doors nodded at Kana's escorts. The one to the right of the door seemed to vanish, moving so quickly that Kana could barely see that the ANBU had entered the Hokage's room. Knowing that there was nothing more he could do for now, he waited.

Soon after the ANBU had entered the room, the massive doors creaked open, revealing the interior. Inside, the room was littered with scrolls, covering the furniture, the shelves, and even some on the floor. A wafting smell of tobacco smoke hit Kana's nose, and it was all he could do not to break down into a coughing fit. It seemed to him that there wasn't enough ventilation in the room to meet the Sandaime's requirements due to his smoking. Behind the desk was the man himself, the Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure.

The Hokage beckoned Kana forth, and dismissed the ANBU. Without a word, they disappeared, and the door shut behind Kana. There was enough natural lighting in the room for Kana to see easily.

Sarutobi was even more aged than Kana had remembered. His body was gaunt, but that served to show his muscles even more, albeit grotesquely. His hair had receded further back, past the forehead towards the pack. His pepper gray hair had turned white, and there were liver spots on his body. Apparently, time had not been good to the Sandaime Hokage.

"So, Kana." Sarutobi said to Kana, showing virtually no emotion in his aged face "You have decided to return."

"Yes, Sarutobi-sama" In his years working with his best friend as the Hokage, he had called Sandaime Hokage by his name, rather than confuse people about who he was talking about.

"That is _Hokage_-sama now." Sarutobi said. It didn't seem that he was very happy with Kana. Five years of abandonment can rankle people, especially in such an honor bound place. In fact, Sarutobi was disappointed with Kana. He was one of the most promising ninja of his time, and even he turned his back on the village.

"Sorry, Hokage-sama." Kana replied "I'm sorry for forgetting to address you by your title, but I'm not sorry for leaving."

"Why do you say that, Kana?" The Hokage questioned. He was interested in Kana's answer, because he knew Kana. Kana always had a good reason to justify what he did.

"Because I needed to heal." Kana started "Besides Kaida, Arashi was the only friend I had. He was the only family I had. I cared about him more than anyone. I would do anything for him, for he truly was my brother.

When he died, I just couldn't handle it. Everything reminded me of him. All the buildings, the restaurants, everything! It was maddening, having all these memories, and knowing that he wasn't coming back. He gave his body to the earth, and his soul to a Shinigami, all for Konoha.

I felt like there was nothing left here. The only reason I stayed so long was because of Kaida. When she left, there was more pain in my mind than responsibility. So I left."

"Then why did you return?" Sarutobi asked, thinking that he knew the answer, but wanted to hear it from the troubled man.

Kana sighed, showing the weight on his shoulders placed by his best friend. "Arashi told me to take care of his son. Naruto. It took me five years to realize that. But I'm here, and I will take on the Yondaime Hokage's last mission given to me."

"So, you came for Naruto? Are you going to take him away?" Sarutobi asked, trying to get Kana to say what he meant by that.

"No, Hokage-sama." Kana replied, "I will stay here, taking care of Naruto. Arashi would have wanted it that way. He loved Konoha more than anything else. You should have known that."

"Very well, Kana." Sandaime Hokage replied, "I just wanted to know your intentions before I released you." Standing up from behind the desk, Sarutobi walked around the table, and removed the bindings from Kana. Kana stood up straight and stretched, finally free from his bonds after all that time.

"I presume Naruto is living in Uzumaki Manor?" Kana asked the aged Hokage.

"Yes," Sandaime replied haltingly "But all but the most loyal attendants have left. They all feared the Kyuubi too much to continue. The villagers have taken to calling it Akudejiro. Naruto spends most of his time isolated inside the manor, reading scrolls, and learning."

"What is his motivation in this?" Kana asked, confused. He didn't understand how such a young child could have such a voracious appetite for reading.

"He wants power." Sandaime replied, "He wants to prove that the Uzumaki clan is the strongest that resides in Konoha. But with only one clan member left, he can't do much."

"Well, Naruto seems to be just like his father," Kana said "Headstrong, and constantly searching for power to prove his worth. I just hope that he doesn't go off and kill himself trying to do something drastic."

"Now that you're here, I doubt he'll hurt himself." Sarutobi assured Kana. "Teach him what it means to be a ninja, and keep him out of trouble, and he'll grow up to be a fine ninja."

"I'd better be off, Hokage-sama" Kana said, smiling at the old man's confidence in him "I still need to meet him." Kana turned to leave.

"One last thing, Kana" Sarutobi said, halting Kana in his tracks.

"What?" Kana asked.

"Don't tell him about his mother… it might upset him." Sarutobi said.

"Very well, Sarutobi-sama." In a final act of defiance, Kana disappeared. Muttering to himself, he said, "On to Uzumaki Manor."

A.N.: Well, that was a good chapter. I'm probably going to go back and edit this when I have a writer's block, though. I'm a bit of a kinda sorta perfectionist. I don't like what I write, for some reason, and it takes a lot of perseverance just to keep going. Feed me with reviews, and I'll feed you with chapters! This might be a fast pace, but I can keep this up if I get enough reviews.

No one has put down any pairings that they want to see, but I think that's a good idea. Even though this is Naruto-centric, we haven't met him yet, and he won't show up until next chapter. He will have the same attitude as earlier, but instead of being a prankster idiot who grows a lot of stamina from his misadventures, he will be a studious and energetic person who gets bogged down in maintaining his Ninja career as well as building his clan.

Akudejiro means Evil Manor, or something to that extent.

Also, the first jutsu that Arashi uses in his battle with the Kyuubi means Technique of the Eight Gates. Basically, it is just opening all eight gates in a rapid succession. Also, it might seem that he is overpowered, almost overwhelming the Kyuubi with pure taijutsu, but they say that an ordinary ninja that opens all eight gates can surpass the Hokage. So, if the Hokage uses it, doesn't it have a much larger effect? In my personal opinion, the eight gates are exponential, so working with a larger starting amount of power brings out a greater effect.

Later, and as before, please review! It makes me post chapters more often!

Edits: Well, I went back, and removed the encounter between Kakashi and Kana. If you haven't finished reading yet, it was crucial to later chapters. I apologize for any confusion that this may have caused, but I have to remind you that this is merely a rough draft piece. I sit down for about an hour and churn out a chapter. If I went back and edited, I would take forever. I had someone edit on another one of my pieces, and that ended badly. I had to wait a ridiculously long time before I got the chapter from them, and I got barely any input back from them. So, I gave out on editing altogether. However, I have found the quality of my writing lacking, so I'm going to go back and edit before I make any more chapters. This shouldn't take more than a couple of days, so expect a chapter sometime this week. If you aren't sure whether a chapter has been edited, just go to the bottom of the chapter, and if there is this section, it has been edited.

For this chapter, as well as removing the Kakashi-Kana encounter, and replaced him with a faceless Konoha ANBU, I cleaned it up. Also, for those who don't get why, even after seeing chapter 6, I realized that Kakashi wasn't ANBU at that time, he was just your run of the mill, average, perverted Jounin. His ANBU career was over at this point in the timeline.


	3. Chapter 3: Into Uzumaki Manor

A.N.: Hi, my viewers! Thank you so much for reviewing! With two more reviews, I'll have more reviews than all my other stories combined! So, anyone who reads, please review what you think. Not only does it help me as a writer, but it gives me support in making this, knowing that people out there really care about my story.

If you haven't noticed, I've moved my A.N. to the front. Now that I've has a couple of requests about how the story should go, I'll reply to them here, as well as in a private message. But soon, I'll cease to send out the private message in favor of here. Another change is that I'll be slowing down the pace significantly; I have wrestling, starting late next week, and that'll be from four to six, the prime time for me to be writing. I might just do multiple chapter binges on the weekends, releasing one or two a week, but don't expect the daily pace I've been keeping. It's really hard to do.

Cyber-Porygon: Yes, Naruto will be darker in this fic. He won't be that naive, believe everyone kind of person. He'll be a lot more cynical and weary than his canon self. He'll still be a really good and determined person; he'll just not really trust anyone. The burden of keeping a clan alive is placed on his shoulders, and he doesn't want to fail.

Dan-kun15: I don't like Naruto to have a bloodline, let alone one that is better than sharingan and byakugan. The Uzumaki clan power lies in their ability to make new jutsu, as well as bending already created jutsu to their own purposes. This will make the Uchia and Uzumaki natural enemies, because the Uchia can copy the jutsu. However, since much of the power will be in the inflection, it would be pointless to copy them. That way they are evenly balanced. And anyways, being a Bijuu container is enough power for Naruto.

I think that's everything I have to say. On with the story!

Kana had left the Hokage's tower quickly, taking some shortcuts unknown to even the usual staff of the tower. He already knew the way in and out of that old tower from when he used to be a ninja there. One had to learn much about the layouts of buildings they would spend much time in. Familiarity on home ground was one of the only advantages given to the defender. Kana had been raised to be a true ninja, not just one of the elite warriors that served a village.

The difference between a true ninja, and just a great warrior, was the fact that true ninja did not let honor or morality or honor get in the way. That dogma had been hammered into Kana from the time he was a child. He grew up on the streets of Konoha, stealing to keep alive. He knew that to win, it was often necessary to shirk one's honor. With that in mind, Kana had been a successful warrior, named the "magician swordsman", by opposing countries bingo books.

Kana and Arashi had been rivals throughout their ninja careers. They would try to best each other at every turn, Kana with his underhanded tricks and his swordsmanship skills against Arashi's countless family jutsu as well as jutsu modifications. Kana had even been considered as a candidate for the Hokage, in homage to his fearsome powers. But in the end, Kana was never picked. His abilities were more of the assassin style, something too dark to be the face of the hidden village. However, this talent for special ops was which landed him a position as one of the thirteen ANBU squads.

In ANBU, there are three groups: Assassination, Espionage, and Guard. There are four squads of each specialization type. But there is also the fifth guard squad, Hokage guard. They were different from the other four guard squads. Not only did they guard, but also they took all kinds of missions that the Hokage asked them to. These missions were the high-priority missions that required the most secrecy. Even the other ANBU squads were not informed of their actions, and all mission reports from that squad were destroyed with the death of the Hokage, therefore preventing their exploits from ever getting out. Kana was the leader of this squad.

For seven long years, Kana had held the position of the thirteenth ANBU division captain. In the beginning of his job, he had very few special Super S-rank missions, and his division took on regular Jounin missions, earning money for Konoha. But two and a half years into the job, the great ninja world war started. Arashi had to lead his men into battle. He had appointed Kaida, Arashi and Kana's teammate, to the position of ninja forces general. Kana, however, never really had the talent to be a commander. Instead, was sent on mission after mission, assassinating important officials, destroying supply routes, and basically disrupting the opposing forces. He took on the temporary role of supreme commander of ANBU black ops for the length of the war.

After two years, Konoha had beaten all the other countries into submission, ending the great ninja war forever. Arashi and his teammates were declared the next generation of Sannin, the coveted team name given only once in a generation. Konoha had entered a golden age, bringing peace to the world. Arashi was happy, acting as leader of the most benevolent hegemony in history, and returned to his true motive, rebuilding his dead clan…

Kana shook the memories from his head. He wasn't here to dwell on the past; he needed to be in the present. He needed to raise Naruto to take care of Arashi's last mission for him. It was sacred, the wish of a dying man. Kana may not have had honor in battle, but he had much honor in his life. He had no intention of letting his friend down when it came to his last wish. In fact, he felt his honor stained already by waiting so long to take care of it.

He made his way through the various streets that wound through Konoha. Konoha was a complex puzzle of streets that mazed inside the great walls. The whole village had been built during amore warlike time, where the unwary were doomed to die. But even through its complexity, people found their way easily through the roads. The long peace of almost eight years had changed the village. The buildings were brightly lit, and civilians flooded the streets, making their way to their destinations. Restaurants were every few meters, the fragrant aromas wafting towards Kana's nose.

As he got closer and closer to the Uzumaki manor, he saw less and less people walking the streets. He also noticed that the buildings around here were in worse shape than in the other parts he had traveled through. Some were even barely above the health code, little more than oversized shacks. Kana was not happy with this development, and he was afraid it had to do with his destination. He pushed on, wanting to make it to the manor, to get to the bottom of this.

Finally, he made it there: the Uzumaki manor. It was surrounded with a stone wall about seven feet high. The gate built in was wrought iron, with curled spikes bending outwards, towards the walkway, overgrown with plants and weeds. The gardens seemed to be untended, completely messy and filthy. The building itself was a dark mahogany wood color, shingled with ornate obsidian plates. It was not very wide, but stretched back very far. Candles burned in the windows, signifying that the manor occupants were there.

Kana walked down the long, winding path, avoiding the bushes that had started to grow on the well-beaten ground. He almost tripped over some tree roots that had begun to encroach upon the pathway. The state of disrepair disturbed Kana, and he wanted to discover the meaning of it.

Kana, after struggling is way along the pathway, made it to the gate. At the gate, there was bell built into the wall, but it had no ringer. Having been to the Uzumaki manor many times when Arashi was in charge, Kana knew what it was, and calmly channeled chakra into his hand, placing his hand on the bell. Slowly, he released the chakra from his hand and pulled it back. The bell began to ring loudly and clearly, its sound carrying all over the manor.

He didn't need to wait long for results. The guardhouse, situated directly behind the wall, light up as someone turned on the lights. Kana, with his acute sense of hearing could hear someone muttering under their breath, and shuffling around the cottage. A few minutes later, the person came out of the house.

The gatekeeper was an old man, mostly bald, with his hair tied back. He was clean-shaven and had piercing brown eyes. He wore a formal white jinbe, and had a dagger in his hand. Kana's quick assessment was that the manor wasn't used to guest, and the ones that did visit were unwelcome. He eyed the man carefully, worrying that he might decide to attack him.

"What'cha doin' here, mister?" The man crooned, settling into a weak stance. Kana observed that this man wasn't really a warrior.

"I am here to se Uzumaki Naruto." Kana replied evenly. "I have business with him."

The old man looked at him suspiciously, apparently not believing him. "What kind of business would that be, sir?"

"My name is Ashiya Kana." Kana said, trying to put a much force behind his words "I was an ANBU captain under Yondaime Hokage, as well as one of his Genin cell teammates. Before he passed away, he asked me to take care of him. Take me to him now."

The man cowered, obviously impressed by the miniscule show of power that Kana had given him "Very well then, sir. Just one moment." The old man unlocked the gate, and is swung inwards to admit Kana.

"Follow me." The old man said, closing the gate after Kana had entered.

Kana fell into step behind the man, as they made it to the manor itself. Kana noticed the state of disrepair inside the walls as well. He decided to ask the old man about it.

"Why is the manor so overgrown?" Kana asked, "Arashi never would have let it get this bad."

"Sorry, sir" the old man replied "After the… attack, everyone found out about what Yondaime-sama did. Most of the staff left. Me and me wife are the only ones left. We cook his food, and take care of what we can, but two people can't take care of such large grounds."

""I see." Kana said frowning. He had not anticipated this general fear from the village people. He would have thought that it would have been the opposite, the village pampering the boy, in fear of releasing the beast. But, apparently this was not the case.

The two entered the manor, and Kana saw that it had not changed much. The insides were dark mahogany with candle holes every five meters on each side. The only differences were that there were no candles, and there were was a fine layer of dust carrying everything. Manor servants were nowhere to be seen. Evidently, the man had been telling the truth about what had happened.

They walked all the way down the hallway silently. They passed countless doors, which seemed if they had been untouched for a long time. Kana found this odd because the front of the house was the residential part. Beyond, there were only the libraries. But then again, Sandaime had said that Naruto spent most of his time reading.

Finally they made it to the end of the hallway. The hall ended in one massive pair of doors, with the kanji for Uzumaki painted in the center. Kana remembered this library. This was the Uzumaki personal library, where only the heads of clans were allowed to give permission to enter. Arashi had never let Kana in here, fearing that the 'magician swordsman' would pick up enough tricks to finally surpass him. He didn't know what it would be like inside the room at all, unlike all of the other rooms in the manor.

The old man knocked on the door loudly. _Thud. Thud._ The old man's fists rang out dully through the manor. From inside, Kana could hear a scrabbling and a padding of feet from an occupant inside. The door creaked open slowly.

The room was dark and dusty, with countless scroll racks lining the walls, and creating aisles across the room. By the door was a massive desk with both an electrical lamp as well as a gas lamp. Various writing materials were in cups on the desk, and the drawers that lay ajar were filled with files. But what caught Kana's attention the most was the occupant of the room.

Standing in the doorway was a boy of five years of age. For clothing, he wore a three-layer junhitoe consisting of white, then sky blue, followed by a strong orange. He was short and skinny, with violently vibrant blonde hair that came down between his shoulder blades. His wide blue eyes stared at Kana, whom the boy had never seemed before.

Kana was stunned. The child was the spitting image of a young Arashi. Given a few years, Kana expected the boy to look even more like the man he had called friend. Eve more memories flooded into his mind. Memories of growing up as a genin, training under the perverted frog sage, Jiraya.

But he was broken out of his reverie by the boy's words "Hey, ojii-san. Who's the stranger?"

Before the old man could reply, Kana stepped in "My name's Kana. I was a friend of your dad's."

Naruto turned to Kana "You knew my father?" He asked, curiosity and strong interest was evident in the boy's expression.

"Yes," Kana replied, "He asked me to take care of you. It was… the last thing he ever said to me."

"Oh…" Naruto said, disheartened at the words "So he really is dead? I mean, no one ever found a body." He said, some hope gleaming in his young, but unprecedented mature eyes.

"Yes." Kana said softly, saddened by the subject as well. He had spent all the time avoiding the subject, and now that he faced it once more, the pains in his heart returned. The silence lasted on for a while, as the two were deep in thought.

"Sorry." Kana said, breaking the silence.

"For what?" Naruto asked, confused at his words.

"For not being there from the beginning." Kana said, "I shouldn't have left you. I was just so upset when he died."

"It's okay, Kana" Naruto said. "You're here now. That's the only thing that really matters."

"Thanks." Kana said quietly, genuinely happy. Now that he had apologized, the shadow of his actions had finally lifted over his conscience. Now he felt he could move on with his life much easier without that bundled up inside him.

"Hey, ojii-san" Naruto said, turning to the old man. "Could you prepare a room for Kana-san? I think he should stay with us, here."

"Hai, Naruto-sama" The old man said, turning away to take care of the task is lord had given to him.

"Arigato" Naruto said after the old man as he headed off. Turning back to Kana, he said, "Come on in. We have much to talk about."

A week later…

Kana had made himself comfortable within the manor. After making sure that his room was taken care of, he has asked Naruto for access to the library. He wanted to train Naruto, but the Uzumaki clan probably had some special training regimens. Naruto hadn't fully grown his chakra coils yet, so jutsu were out of the question. He constantly looked for scrolls titled 'taijutsu training' or 'basic Uzumaki exercise'. He found many scrolls like that, but many of them required mastery of various jutsu well beyond pre-academy student level. So he had resigned himself to just training in kunai use and stealth.

He had come up with the ingenious idea of training both aspects at both time. On is fourth day there, he had barred the library from Naruto. He told Naruto that he needed to train physically. To do that, he gave Naruto a kunai, and told him to draw blood from him. Only after then would he allow Naruto access to the family library.

Angry at first, Naruto had tried to charge him head on. Rather than dodging or disarming, Kana just poured chakra out of his tenketsu, slowing it down and increasing the density until it formed a physical barrier. He couldn't do this for long, and it took a little bit of time to prepare. But Naruto had to learn that for himself, and learn to attack when Kana wasn't expecting it.

Yesterday, Naruto had almost made it. During breakfast in the manor's great kitchen, Naruto fell off the chair. Worried that Naruto had hurt himself, Kana immediately came to the boy's side. It was then when he struck. It took all the reflexes Kana had just to dodge the move. The attempt foiled, Kana and Naruto had a silent breakfast.

Kana who knew very little about children, knew that the boy was learning fast. Faster than a child his age should. But, Kana reasoned, this probably came from his constant reading. The Sandaime had told him he spent all his time in the library, and it seemed to be true. Kana knew he had to come up with a new training technique.

But what worried the most is that he hadn't seen Naruto for most of the day. He wasn't even at breakfast. Kana was pretty sure that this was part of the kid's plan to win, but you could never be sure. Kana made sure to keep an aye out for the kid wherever he went.

'_How could I be such an idiot?'_ Naruto thought to himself. Late the night before, he had come up with a brilliant plan. The plan consisted of climbing through the attic, which went over the whole house, which would lead him right over to Kana's room. From there he could jump down and sneak up on him. There was a slight problem with this plan, though. The roof apparently wasn't even in some places, and he had successfully squeezed through.

But when he was going over the main hallway, he had bitten off more than he could chew. He got stuck. Now all he could do was try to break free and repair the damage later. Se flexed and squirmed; pressing against the various walls he was confined by, attempting to break free.

Kana had explored the grounds, and hadn't found Naruto. He didn't expect to find the boy there, but he tried anyways. He had asked the gatekeeper whether he had seen Naruto, but to no avail. He spent the whole day poking through the rooms, and even the library, trying to find where Naruto had went. He found nothing to help him.

Dejected, Kana trudged down the main hallway towards his room. He opened his door and was going to step in when he heard a curious noise. It was a squeaking sound, with something that sounded like grunting, but he couldn't be sure. He walked out into the hallway to pinpoint it. Standing right under the noise, Kana looked up, trying to decipher what the sound was.

With an almighty band, and an explosion of dust, the ceiling cracked outwards and down, Naruto falling from the ceiling, his hands outstretched in front of him, reflexively preparing to break his fall. In his right hand was his kunai.

Before Kana could do anything, Naruto smacked into him full force. Naruto's kunai slashed Kana's arm, causing it to bleed as they crumpled into a heap, man, boy, and debris.

Extricating himself from the rubble, Naruto laughed sheepishly, scratching his head. Kana stood up amazedly looking at his right arm. _'Even accidentally, he succeeded. I guess I'll have to give him the new training'._

"Sorry Kana-sensei." Naruto said apologetically "I was stuck, and broke out. It was an accident."

"Well, accident or no, Naruto" Kana said sternly, "You pass!" He said, smiling uncharacteristically wide.

"Allright!" Naruto said, "Does this mean I can go back on to the library?"

"Not yet, Naruto." Kana said, now grinning evilly "I have a new lesson for you…"

That's the end of the chapter. Now for the next chapter, I was thinking of skipping straight to Ninja Academy and graduation, but I can continue this little 'inventive training from Kana' motif for another chapter if you want to. Post a reply yea or nay on skipping.

-PhilosopherofthePen

Edits: Cleaned up grammar, sentence structure, and overall general aesthetics. Personally, I don't think my edits are extensive enough, so I will probably go back at chapter 12 or so, and re-edit all of the chapters. Thank you for all the people loyal enough to re-read the chapters. This one isn't as important when it comes to plot changes, like chapter 2 and 6, but still. For new people, there isn't too much difference. I just changed it so Kakashi and Kana didn't meet in the beginning. Doesn't make much difference until chapter 6 or so, and even then it still makes little difference. Just wanted you to know you that you weren't missing anything.


	4. Chapter 4: End of Old, Beginning of New

A.N. Well, first of all, thank you all guys for all the reviews. We went from five to nine with just one chapter! And we got way more hits. We jumped from about 800 to 1900 in about ten hours! That's 100 people viewing it each hour (if you consider that each view is by a different person) As for time skip or not…

Two people said yes, two said no, and the fourth said maybe. That leaves me with the deciding vote (because the person said they'd accept whatever I did.) I thought I was going to come up with some brilliant training session, but I didn't. That means time skip!

This is just some preliminary information so people know what to expect for the chapter.

Enjoy!

It had been eight years since Kana had returned to Konoha. He had returned to take care of Naruto, his best friend's son. In those eight years, many things had changed around the Naruto mansion.

Over those eight years, Kana had decided to make sure that the place was fixed out. He had hired serfs to once more fill the once empty halls of Uzumaki manor. Most of the people were reluctant about even considering the option, but Kana had worked persistently. When he couldn't find anyone willing, he would go to the immigrant section of the city, finding people who didn't know about Naruto's dark past. To them it seemed like free housing with pay, and many of them eagerly joined on. Now every dorm of the manor was filled, the grounds constantly clean, and the place actually looked like what it was under Arashi.

But the biggest change of all, however, was Naruto. Through his strange training with Kana, he had become very skilled in stealth and weapons use. As soon as Naruto's chakra circulatory system was developed enough, Kana had begun to train him in the uses of bunshin, henge, and kawairmi. These were some of Kana's choice jutsu for use in combination with his sword; their myriad uses and little cost of exertion had made them some of his most effective jutsu in his youth. Not only was his jutsu training changing him radically, his appearance had changed even more dramatically.

Now, instead of wearing his bulky and ceremonial junhitoe like he usually wore when he was younger, he wore a loose fitting orange cloak, along with loose black pants both held at the waist by a belt. Under the cloak and pants, however, was a body suit that was in lined with metal in all the areas that wouldn't compromise dexterity. He wore his kunai pouch on his right thigh, filled with padding to prevent noise. His hair was cut short, now only being about two or three inches long at most, in an unruly, spiky design that came naturally to his hair.

Through his training with Kana, he had exceeded in his classes at the Konoha Ninja Academy. Along with the other geniuses, namely Aburame Shino and Uchiha Sasuke, he was one of the contenders for the coveted position of rookie of the year. It wasn't like he really cared, though. He only went to the Academy to become a genin. His real training had been with Kana, and it was all he could to pay attention in class, so he could go home to find a strange new training task from the man.

The training techniques never ceased to amaze him, like trying to run so fast over water that he wouldn't have to use chakra to keep him up. He wasn't good enough at control to try walking on water by using chakra yet, so Kana had never tried to teach him how to do it another way. Naruto knew he had a lot of Chakra; more than a kid his age ever had. But, by the virtue of his great capacity, he wasn't able to control the small amounts required for the jutsu. It took him forever to learn the Kawairmi, Henge, and Bunshin, and he almost never got them completely right. Kana had him reserve a couple hours each day set aside to controlling those techniques better.

But, Naruto had woken up early that day. As he always did, he dressed, and went to the manor kitchen. The house cooks hadn't made breakfast yet, but they made an early meal for Naruto. They knew it was his special day that day, and they wanted to make sure he was prepared.

Today was graduation day. Yesterday, Naruto had passed the tests, even though is trouble with the Academy Required Jutsu. The title of Rookie of the Year went on to Uchiha Sasuke. Naruto didn't really care though. He was just glad that he was finally rid of the lame classes, and was now a Genin.

After breakfast, and finishing getting dressed, Naruto headed out of the manor. He jumped up onto one of the roofs near the manor, jumping from building to building. He knew that no one would care. Most of the buildings in the area were abandoned. He never figured out exactly what was behind that, but he thought it had to do with him. Ojii-san and Kana would never tell him what it was about, and the villagers wouldn't even give him the time if he asked. He put it aside as one of the mysteries he would have to find out later, when he was older, and pushed on to the academy.

Naruto made it to his destination very quickly, arriving before most of the other students had arrived. The more studious of the new genin had already made it to the building. Uchiha Sasuke was already there, skulking up by the tree. The quiet boy confused Naruto. By all rights, Sasuke should have been happy with his life. He had all the girls chasing after him, and he was the rookie of the year. But the Uchiha seemed to never be happy. Naruto had heard of the Uchiha massacre, but never knew very much about it. Another mystery for him to find out later, he had decided.

Shino was already there as usual, sitting quietly on the steps. Naruto never really understood Aburame either, but all the Aburame clan was known for quiet and detached. They were famous bug users of Konoha, and Shino was another clan genius, much like Sasuke. Naruto guessed that since he had competed on an even level with the other two, he was a clan genius as well. But without having any other Aburame academy student to really compare Shino to, he wasn't really sure.

Naruto nodded at both of the other boys respectfully as he passed them by. The Aburame nodded back at him, but the Uchiha didn't even acknowledge him, and ignored his existence completely. Sasuke seemed extremely competitive, and took every competition personal. Since Naruto had been pitted against him countless times, he had always been unfriendly with the other boy. Used to this, Naruto passed him by, unfazed, and sat down on the old tire swing, waiting for class to start.

As the hours passed, the others filed into the school. By nine, everyone had arrived, and they were allowed into the classroom. All of the students were talking to their friends, hoping that they were put on teams with people they liked. For the most part, Naruto honestly didn't really care who he worked with, though he wasn't sure if he wanted Sasuke on his team. Teamwork would be difficult if they were placed together. Sasuke was never really nice to him. Naruto had tried to be nice to him, but Sasuke had always given him the cold shoulder.

But that didn't matter now. Naruto settled down in his seat to read a scroll he had brought from home. It was a comprehensive jutsu training scroll that was designed to help him increase the amount of chakra he could concentrate inside his body. It involved channeling his chakra into his hands, stretching the chakra coils slightly, as well as holding it in the hand for as long as possible. Not only did this increase the chakra molding efficiency, it increased the time he could hold a jutsu before releasing it.

As he read, attempting to understand the basics of what he needed to do to make it work, Iruka entered the room. The Ninja Academy sensei had been nice to Naruto, nicer than most adults his age. Sometimes Naruto and Kana joined Iruka for ramen at Ichiraku's. He was Naruto's favorite sensei in the whole place. Many of the others treated him like the villagers did, trying to keep away, and if possible, insulting him. However, Iruka was never like that.

Iruka approached the front of the class, calling out "All right, class. Settle down." All of the academy students still standing made their way towards their chairs, and the students still talking became silent. Naruto, realizing that it was starting, put his jutsu scroll back away in his bag.

Iruka cleared his throat before continuing, addressing the class with a smile on his face. "This is a special day for all of you. Today, you are no longer my students. From this day forth, you will be instructed in three man cels under a Jounin sensei. The cels are as following…"

All the students that weren't really paying attention to the Academy instructor perked up, listening for their names in the list. As names were called, the students moved to be together. As more and more names were called, fewer and fewer students were left. And then Naruto's name was called.

"Team Seven!" Iruka announced, his voice carrying over the buzz from the students that had already found out their groups "Uzumaki Naruto," Naruto listened up to hear who his teammates were. He'd have to work with them for a while, so it was important. "Aburame Shino," Naruto noticed what his team pattern was already. He knew who was the third teammate, and he wasn't happy. But he still held on to his hope that he was wrong. "and Uchiha Sasuke."

"Team Eight!" Iruka called, continuing reading down the list. "Nara Shikamaru, Hyuuga Hinata, and Inzukuza Kiba."

"Team Nine!" Iruka called out the names for the team, but Naruto didn't really know any of the people that were assigned on the team.

"Team Ten!" Iruka called. "Yamanaka Ino, Akimichi Chouji, Haruno Sakura." The screeches of the two girls were heard across the classroom. Their bitter rivalry over Sasuke was no new news to the class. In fact, they were always vying for the position of the president of the Sasuke fan club. But their complaining gave Naruto a good idea.

Naruto was very unhappy. He had been put with the one person he didn't want on his team. "Iruka sensei," He asked, hoping that his last ditch effort would work, "Is there any way to change the teams?"

"No, Naruto," Iruka replied, "These lists were handpicked by the Hokage. It is a new tradition we are trying to start, to put the three best students in a group, and we have no reason to go back on that now."

"Fine." Naruto said, slightly upset that his idea didn't work out. No matter, though. He'd just have to deal with it, and if that didn't work out well, he would just work on becoming a chuunin as quickly as possible. Naruto walked over to is two new teammates, nodding at both of them. Naruto had the same result from this morning, except this time, Sasuke just smirked at him. Naruto knew that this was going to be hard, working with the last Uchiha. Though sometimes he thought he could relate, being the last Uzumaki.

But there was nothing that was going to change. He had to focus on the now, not wish about how things would be if he had his way. Now they had to wait for their sensei. Naruto pulled out his scroll and began to read about the new training method he found.

One by one, all of the groups were called by their Jounin sensei, and were led out of the room. Now, everyone's sensei had arrived and taken their team away, except for team seven's. Naruto was displeased, but didn't care too much; this just gave him more time to read his scroll. Sasuke sat in his chair, looking slightly miffed by the fact that their Sensei hadn't shown up yet. Shino, as usual, sat there with showing no outward emotion.

Two hours had passed since the teams had been announced. It had been an hour and a half since the last team was led out. Naruto and his team were still there, however, sitting in the desks.

Naruto had moved beyond reading the scroll to working on the exercise. It took all of is concentration to try and hold in the chakra, but even so, he was beginning to get angry at the fact that their sensei hadn't arrived. It was really starting to affect his concentration as he tried to hold the chakra inside of his hand. His lack of control caused a massive amount of chakra to be focused that needed a way out of the new genin's body. And with an almighty explosion, Naruto lost control.

Sasuke and Shino, unaware of what Naruto had been doing, jumped back immediately, expecting an attack. Naruto, however, wasn't so lucky. He was thrown through the air into the door. Or rather, the open doorway. Their sensei had finally arrived.

Naruto quickly extricated himself from his sensei, which was completely unprepared for what had happened. He was unconscious on the floor. Sasuke shook his head at how easily a Jounin had been knocked out. Shino showed no emotion, preferring to hide his face behind his large coat. His eyebrows, however, were visible over his glasses. Apparently, he was really surprised. The three students decided to wait for their sensei to wake up, rather than shake him awake. After about a minute or so, their sensei regained consciousness, and got to his feet.

The strange man wore navy blue pants and a long sleeved matching shirt. Over that, he wore a Jounin jacket. On his right hip, he wore his kunai pouch, seemingly filled with various weapons. His silver hair was about eight inches long, standing up, slanted towards the right. However, the most defining character of the sensei was his hiai-ate. It was slanted down his forehead, covering the left side of his head.

The man dusted himself off from his crash with Naruto, and finally noticed the three genin standing in front of him. "Oh. Hello." He said, neutrally and calmly "My name is Hatake Kakashi. I am your Jounin sensei."

"Why were you so late?" Naruto asked, angrily "Everyone else left hours ago!"

"Well," the Jounin said calmly, "I crossed a black cat on my way here, and I had to take the long way." Naruto and Sasuke sweat dropped. Shino just lifted his eyebrows above his glasses, showing his surprise and displeasure at the answer.

"It took you _two_ hours to get here?!?!?!" Naruto screeched, furiously "I can get all the way across Konoha in an hour and a half! And I'm only a genin!"

"All that matters is that I made it." Their sensei replied. "Anyways, meet me at the roof." And with that, he disappeared in an explosion of smoke.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Shino made their way to the roof of the building, not knowing what else to do. They walked through the halls of their old school, ascending flights of stairs as they approached their destination. They escalated one last flight of stairs, which opened up onto the roof. Standing there was their sensei.

"About time you got here…" The Jounin called out, beckoning for them to take a seat. They all sat down on the small step in front of Kakashi.

"Okay." Kakashi said, addressing the group "I don't really know much about you guys, so you are going to tell me your name, your likes and dislikes, your hobbies, and your dreams. You first." He said, pointing at Shino.

"Very well." Shino replied in his dark, neutral voice. "My name is Aburame Shino. I, like the rest of my clan, like bugs, and hate people who would threaten them. My hobby is to find more bugs to study, because my dream is to further the knowledge of the Aburame."

'_Okay'_ Kakashi thought to him. _'That was creepy, but pretty normal for one of the Aburame'. _"You next." He said, pointing to Sasuke.

"My name is Uchia Sasuke," Sasuke said, almost sulkily "As for likes, I like nothing." Everyone stared strangely at his remark "As for dislikes, I dislike a lot of things." More stares came from his teammates. "My dream is to kill a certain someone…" Everyone stared at him, even harder and more incredulously than before.

'_And I thought the first one was creepy'_ Kakashi thought to himself _'I hope the third one isn't so… disturbing as the others'_ "Last, and hopefully not least, you." He said, not even bothering to point. If the kid didn't know that he was talking to him, he didn't deserve to be a ninja.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto!" The third boy said cheerfully "I like ramen, books, and training with Kana!" _'Thank the kami!'_ Kakashi thought to himself_ 'he's not weird!'_" As for dislikes, I _hate_" he said with force "stuck-up jerks" he looked at Sasuke, glaring "and people who are _always late!_" he glared at Kakashi, giving a not so subtle hint to his teacher. Sasuke immediately sweat-dropped at Naruto's words remembering the whole afternoon wasted waiting for their teacher. Shino, however, remained impassive like a true member of his clan.

"All right, then." Kakashi said, "I guess that it's my turn…" The three boys focused their attention on their sensei, wanting to find more about him "I have many likes and dislikes. I have various hobbies and dreams. None of which I feel like telling you about." The entire team sweat dropped, and this time even Shino joined them.

"Well, now that that's over with, I have to go." Kakashi told the group. "Meet me at training ground five tomorrow, at six in the morning, for training." He walked away, but paused without turning around, as if, he remembered something. "Oh, and don't eat breakfast. You'll throw up."

And with those words, Kakashi disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving his three mystified students behind. Realizing that their meeting with their Jounin sensei was done, they went their separate ways home, to their various manors, to prepare for the day tomorrow. Whatever the task was, they knew that it would take every part of their skills to succeed. They were going to be prepared for the challenge worthy of the three top students of their graduating class.

I believe that since the difference of this iteration of Naruto, the teams should be different. Now, these teams are built to tactically make sense.

As for teams of consequence, this is how it follows:

Team 7:

Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, and Aburame Shino: These are the three class elite students, all of which have calm attitudes and good reasoning. With Naruto's character change, I believed it important to further change the dynamic of the team. Expect great things from them.

Team 8: Nara Shikamaru, Hyuuga Hinata, and Inzukuza Kiba: Combination of tracking/ capturing. It is my personal belief that Kagemane no Jutsu only transfers kinetic energy that the enemy has. I.E. if your bound opponent gets punched, it feels like you just got punched. But if you used a juuken on a bound opponent, Shikamaru will only feel the palm slaps. Tactical ownage!

Team 10: Yamanaka Ino, Haruno Sakura, and Akimichi Chouji: This is like the original combination of Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura. For this one, Ino and Sakura are pushing to pass up each other. Chouji is kind of the third wheel of this team, but is stronger than Ino and Sakura in the beginning.

Even if the teams are really different, there are no OC's beyond Kana and Kaida. Kaida hasn't shown up yet, and I haven't decided where she should be showing up. Either between the second and third exams, to train Naruto, but he already has Kana, so she'll probably be a character that won't show up until really late in the series.

Also, to let you guys know, I don't plan to get much over 100,000 words. After that, I'll start a new book. I'm thinking of calling it Different Life, Path to Greatness. And the third would have Path to Greatness, (insert thematic phrase here). So it keeps a general theme. I'm planning a trilogy now, but I might go into a second generation beyond Naruto if people want me to (think like the 6 episodes of star wars).

Anyways, I have to get back to other stuff. Read and review!

Edits: General matinence and descriptive word improvement.


	5. Chapter 5: Trials of a young warrior

Cyber-Porygon: Thank you for replying about this. It is my personal beleif that this is my Naruto universe. By the fact that it merely exists differently from the Canon, the teams will be different. So, in this universe, instead of the best with the worst, I put the three best on a team. This was to keep Naruto and Sasuke together on one team. If you haven't noticed, Naruto is a lot more studious than his Canon self. I felt it important to keep the bond between Sasuke and Naruto going to help familiarize this story with Canon. I could have made Sakura dead last, but then, it wouldn't be Sakura. So I picked the third strongest rookie of the year: Shino.

Also I know about the two-boy one girl thing, and find that pattern stupid. It leads to stagnancy and boringness with the same team pattern over, and over, and over again. Therefore I abolished the rule, and re-created the teams to fit my way of thinking. Sakura will become much stronger trying to out-do Ino, Shikamaru and Hinata will become one of the best fighting teams in the rookie nine. If you noticed, one team has three boys, one team has two boys, and the third team has only one boy. Each one, even if it was not unique with its characters, has a different feeling due to the gender placement.

I would like to apologize for my writing absence. Recently, I came to a conflict within myself, and lost my ability to write anything very creative. I felt like I was dead inside without my creativity. But thankfully, I got it back, and I'm back, hopefully for good. Anyways, I think that's all. On with the story.

After the meeting with his strange sensei, Naruto went home. He didn't want to be late for Kana's training sessions. It had taken him all day, but he had finished the required training Kana had given him. Hopefully, he hurried back, wondering what kind of training Kana would give him with this new technique… climbing one handed? Flying through the air with a controlled explosion? Super strength? But he was to be disappointed.

When he returned home, Kana was gone. When he asked the various house members, they only said that he had gone out to see the Hokage. Dejected, Naruto went into the training room to do only standard practice. Without Kana, he wouldn't really learn anything.

Kana had a unique way of teaching. He wouldn't tell you how to do something, like most teachers would, and then give you a practical application. He would give you the practical application, and then force you to solve it with the skill that was the lesson. Not only were his lessons effective, but also they brought Naruto a greater understanding with the jutsu.

For example, when he had been learning evasion techniques, Kana would just attack him without any notice. Naruto would have to dodge in the blink of an eye. Many times, he had been hit, but he successfully used the Kawarimi no Jutsu to keep himself out of injury. But through these lessons, Naruto picked up the idea of maintaining a Bunshin in battle, only to use Kawairmi on it, to seem as if he never got hurt. Against enemies that didn't know what happened, it worked as an intimidation tool as well as doubling as getting a vantage point on the enemy.

He had really grown a lot with Kana's lessons. No matter how daunting the tasks were, they helped him greatly in mastering the basics. Without Kana, he would probably be so far behind his current self that he would have had a lot trouble with graduating. But with them, he was placed at the top of the class, and he was grateful for that.

After doing all his basic practice, Naruto took his daily bath. That was one of the perks of being in the highest class of Konoha; the luxuries. He had his own personal sauna in the manor, and he used it every day after training. Naruto found it a great way to wind down after a hard day of practice.

Naruto followed through the rest of his routine for the night. He stopped by the kitchen to get dinner, before heading of to his room. In his room, he pulled a scroll out from his desk, and walked over to his bed. Naruto climbed in and turned on the lamp to start reading. And he read until he could no longer fight the heaviness of his eyelids, and fell asleep, resting for the upcoming day.

Early in the morning, Naruto woke. Since he wasn't able to practice with Kana last afternoon, he hoped to get a training session with him before he left. Naruto was careful to avoid breakfast, and follow his sensei's sparse instructions about the evaluation mission. Rather than heading towards the kitchen, he prowled the halls looking for his training instructor.

However, Naruto's efforts were for nothing. Kana, like last night, was nowhere to be found upon the grounds of the Uzumaki Manor. Dejected, Naruto continued self-training since he was up so early, careful not to use up too much chakra: he knew that he was going to need that for the test.

But Naruto never really worried about chakra; he always had a huge amount. He had wondered whether it was a family trait, or some kind of kekkei genkai, but there was no mention of it anywhere within the massive Uzumaki library. He would know; he had spent most of his childhood reading in that massive chamber, going over history and other basic information that was entrenched in the room. He had not read much of the Jutsu scrolls, finding them pointless. This was due to the fact that he didn't have enough chakra or training at the time to successfully attempt any of the jutsu, even the most basic ones.

Soon, it was time for Naruto to head down to the training field. He double-checked to make sure that all his equipment was satisfactory, and decided to bring some extra smoke powder. Ninja were meant to be stealthy, and this was an evaluation mission of his Ninja skills, so it would be important to have some extra. He slipped on his orange coat, attaching it at the waist with the ties, and headed out of the manor, towards the training field.

Wanting to avoid the traffic of the roads, Naruto jumped from roof to roof, making sure that he was completely silent. He didn't want to disturb the occupants inside the houses. For some reason, they really seemed to not like him, and would yell at him if he annoyed him. Naruto was perplexed by this reaction, because he had not found anything in his family's history that would warrant such a reaction.

But even so, the calm quiet of the travel appealed to Naruto. It let him think in peace, with little chance of interruption. In fact, it reminded him of his younger days, when it was just Ojii-san and Obaa-san and him. He would spend all day in the library, delving into the few scrolls that were of any use to him. Ojii-san and Obaa-san, when they weren't taking care of the day's chores, had helped teach Naruto how to read and write. He was really grateful for that. Without them, he would probably have become a useless idiot.

Naruto probably wouldn't have become a Ninja if it weren't for the arrival of Kana. He had put a fire under Naruto, a passion for training to become a ninja that had never been there before. Instead of repetitive training tasks, like climbing trees with just your feet, Kana trained him differently. He gave Naruto an objective, usually hitting Kana, or avoiding being hit by Kana, using only certain Jutsu. It taught Naruto how to use jutsu in different ways than normally intended, which gave him a big advantage over his classmates.

Even so, Sasuke had beaten him for the title of Rookie of the year. He had fought for the title viciously, training for hours after school just to make sure that he could beat anyone else in the class. Sasuke made it seem like he didn't deserve to live if he didn't earn the title. Naruto thought that it had something to do with the Uchia massacre, but never really looked into it. With his determination, Sasuke was condescending to anyone that actually posed a threat to him when it came to that title. Naruto and Shino had taken the brunt of it, but they both shrugged it off with ease. Naruto was always more preoccupied with his training with Kana, and Shino never seemed to show any strong emotion.

The buildings started to thin out as he neared the training fields, and Naruto had to stop concentrating on his inner thoughts to concentrate on where to jump. Eventually, Naruto just jumped down, and began to make a light jog the rest of the way. There were only a couple of people out on the streets this close to the training fields, because most of the villagers liked to stay away from shinobi training. It could be very dangerous if they got in the way of it. Naruto ran the last few blocks to the grassy training field.

When he arrived, Shino and Sasuke were already there. Shino was standing still, showing no emotion from behind his glasses and jacked. Sasuke was leaning against one of the three stumps behind him, looking around. Naruto jumped on top of one of the stumps, sitting calmly.

Without looking back, Sasuke said, "You're late."

"Sorry," Naruto replied, "I was held up looking for someone."

After a short silence, Naruto decided to speak again. "Well, does it really matter? I mean, our sensei isn't even here yet." Sasuke only grunted, accepting Naruto's words. "You'd think a Jounin would be more responsible and actually show up on time."

But no more words were spoken between the boys. The three Academy Student Graduates stood there in silence, waiting for their late instructor.

Roughly two hours later…

Naruto and Sasuke were getting impatient. It had been two hours since Naruto arrived, and Naruto had been about twenty minutes late. Their Jounin sensei had not arrived yet, and they were getting angry about it. Shino, on the other hand, was as impassive as ever, standing as still as a rock.

"Where is he!" Naruto exclaimed, now extremely aggravated "This is just like yesterday!"

Neither Sasuke nor Shino replied to him, but they were both thinking the same thing as Naruto. They were starting to get annoyed that their sensei had not arrived yet. Jounin were supposed to be responsible, and if they couldn't show up on time, then they weren't very responsible.

"Sorry I'm late" Kakashi said, strolling into the training field "There was a black cat and…"

"Arrgh!" Naruto screamed, "You're a Jounin! You're supposed to show up on time to meetings! What's the matter with you!"

Sasuke and Shino were completely silent during Naruto's tirade. They didn't agree with Naruto's reaction, but they had the same feelings as him on the matter. Both of them were angry, _very_ angry. They just weren't as vocal about their displeasure as Naruto was being.

"Well, now that I'm here, let's start." Kakashi said. "You may have graduated from the Academy, but you are not Genin yet."

"What!" Naruto screamed, "Oh, come on… you've got to be kidding me." Once more, Naruto said what the whole team was thinking, because the other two were too reserved to act so strongly. That, and the person that Naruto was berating was a Jounin. And no Genin really wants to go up against a Jounin, unless of course, that Genin was Naruto.

"Please tell me we have to fight you," Naruto said after finally calming down a little "Because I _really_ want to get back at you for being so late."

"Funny you should say that" Kakashi said, "You're not far off from the truth." He reached behind and into his supply bag, and pulled out two small bells.

"You see these?" He asked. "These are the objective. You will have from ten o'clock until noon to get these bells from me."

Kakashi paused and looked at the three boys, all of which had extremely different expressions. Sasuke, the resident stick-in-the-ass team member, had a smirk on his face, wanting to show off his strength to Kakashi. Naruto was grinning widely, wanting to beat up his sensei for being late. And Shino, as always, was strangely emotionless.

Kakashi waited there, just silently standing in front of his genin students. He hoped that he would see a little fear in a couple of them. That would make it easier for him, and harder for them. Soon, It was time for the three to start their mission. In a couple of hours, the three students would be failed, and he could get on with his life.

"And remember," Kakashi said "You have to come at me with lethal force, otherwise you'll never be able to get a bell."

He looked down at its watch, as the second hand ticked away, towards the top. "And… go!" Kakashi exclaimed.

Naruto immediately flipped back away from his instructor, deciding to hide in the foliage until he found an advantageous point to attack. He was going up a Jounin, after all, and it definitely wouldn't be easy. Naruto decided to hold back until he could come up with more information. Who knows what secrets could be hidden behind that mask? He definitely didn't want to go into a fight blind.

As he looked out from his vantage point, he saw that Sasuke and Shino had disappeared as well. Naruto was slightly disappointed at this information. He was hoping that someone would try to go against Kakashi directly enough to cause a distraction, as well as giving him information about his instructor. There was no way that he could sneak up on the Jounin and get a bell. An Academy graduate couldn't hope to surprise a Jounin. He had no choice but to attack.

Coming to this realization, Naruto started preparing everything while coming up with a plan for it. He placed a ready release kunai trap, the tight strings prepared to send a deadly hail of projectiles directly at the target, Kakashi. Naruto moved away from his original position, and formed bunshin, having them move into position for the kawarimi no jutsu. Within a few minutes, his plan was conceived, and he was in position to try and take a bell.

Naruto constantly kept an eye out for his target, hoping against hope that he would not change position. Surely enough, the only movement the cyclopean Jounin had made was to pull out a bright orange book that he seemed completely engrossed in. Naruto was thankful that something was finally going his way this morning. With everything prepared, he struck.

Naruto threw several kunai in separate directions, releasing the tension holding the kunai back, springing the traps. Deadly weapons flashed through the air towards the target. One of Naruto's bunshin appeared from the other edge of the clearing, ready to be replaced in an instant.

The kunai were a direct is, but Kakashi was completely prepared for the tack. He had used a Kawarimi to avoid harm. Instead of a bloody corpse, there was a pulverized log. Cursing silently to himself, Naruto made the seals, switching places with his bunshin. After a few seconds of nausea and unease from the instantaneous relocation, Naruto stepped further out into the clearing. He knew that his only chance now was a head on confrontation. Even if he had no chance of beating the Jounin, he still had to try and capture a bell.

Kana had taught him that real shinobi were more than people, more than weapons. They were the will of their commanders. They were supposed to represent their village, their organization. Without that, they were not ninja. Without something bigger, a ninja was little more than a strong warrior. So to return the gift of honor to what the ninja represents, the ninja must take missions from their village. Without completing these missions, they would be nothing. Ninjas must give it their all on every mission, even risk their life.

Naruto stepped even further into the clearing. Right when he was going to call out to Kakashi, his silver haired sensei appeared from the woods, right from where Naruto had launched his attack. His instructor chuckled while stepping further out from the foliage.

"Not bad, Naruto, not bad." Kakashi called out to him from the other edge of the clearing. "But you are only using the academy techniques. I would have thought that I would have seen something special from you, the only Uzumaki left."

"Thanks, Kakashi-sensei" Naruto replied "But if you think that that's all I've got, then you're in for a big surprise."

Both Naruto and Kakashi stood opposite each other, waiting for one of them to make the first move. Kakashi was in the defending position, so he had all the time in the world. Naruto looked at his chrono on his wrist. _Damn,_ he thought silently _only twenty minutes left_. Once again, Naruto was forced to go on the offensive, and start the fight.

Naruto changed his even stance for a more forward stance. He slid his left foot forward, and brought his hands forward to lead with the foot. Almost all of his weight was placed on his front foot, while his back foot served as the directional force, allowing him to charge in any direction.

"Mancatcher stance, Naruto?" Kakashi called out once more "I'm disappointed. I thought you were going to surprise me!"

"Sometimes the surprise doesn't come from the technique itself." Naruto replied, "Sometimes the strength comes from how you use the jutsu."

With a loud cry to drive him forward, Naruto charged. The long strides quickly covered the distance between the two. Naruto's arms were thrown back behind him, out of the way. Kakashi steeled himself; it seemed that Naruto was going to impact him with a bull rush.

But what he hadn't noticed was that some of Naruto's bunshin were closing distance with him as well. He paid them little attention because the clones weren't solid. Therefore, he treated them as little more than a distraction. But that ignorance was about to cost him a bell.

As Naruto close the last few feet, he used the hand signs for the kawarimi. Now, the Naruto charging Kakashi wasn't real. But Naruto was too fast in making the hand signs. Kakashi had no idea.

Now Naruto was a little behind Kakashi and to the right. He kept on running. He was only a few feet away from Kakashi and…

He grabbed the bell! He really pulled off! Before Kakashi could get it back, Naruto jumped away, holding up his great trophy in triumph! With only five minutes left, he was worried that he would fail the mission. But he had pushed through, and was victorious!

But as he looked at his prize, he began to see things wrong with it. The ball seemed to have moving cracks. Then Naruto realized. It wasn't a bell, but some of Shino's bugs. Shino had probably taken the bell a while ago, and replaced it so that the Jounin wouldn't notice.

Naruto had failed! After years of hard work and extensive training, he had failed! If he had just grabbed the other bell, he would have passed. Naruto fell on his knees, cursing his failure and bad luck.

But no, he still had time to get a bell, he rationalized. He would have to use _it. _No, no, he thought to himself, it was too dangerous. He told himself that he could just go back to the academy for another year. It was better than risking _it_.

After debating it inside, Naruto came to a decision. He couldn't give up no, he decided. He had to do everything in his power to win this challenge. He would just have to deal with the consequences later.

He brought his hands together to form the seals. There was no going back now. He had to see this through to the end, no matter what happened. Kakashi stared at him with mild interest. He could see how much chakra Naruto was molding, and he worried what might happen from it.

Naruto came to the end of the hand seals, finishing the molding of the chakra for the jutsu. He felt the chakra push through his body, and get dammed up in one point inside him. But then, the dam broke, and massive amounts of chakra flooded his entire body, evenly dispersing itself. Naruto felt elated and exhilarated at the sheer amount of energy that he now held in his body.

"I really didn't want to have to do this, Kakashi-sensei" Naruto told the Jounin. "But you really left me no choice. Blink Jutsu!" And as soon as the words left his mouth, he disappeared into thin air.

Kakashi was completely stunned by his student's move. The kid had disappeared from his view so quickly. He looked around hoping to spot his student, but to no avail. In less than a second, he revealed his sharingan, and activated it to look out for genjutsu. But there were none. As quickly as he revealed his eye, Kakashi hid his eye once more behind his forehead protector. He looked for the remaining bell on his waist, but it was gone.

Kakashi looked up, and he saw. Naruto was collapsed on the ground with the bell in his hand. He had managed to take the bell from him. He smiled proudly and sadly behind his mask. He was proud because Naruto was just like his father, Uzumaki Arashi.

Right then, a blue blur sped out of the trees, and stole the prize right out of Naruto's limp hand. Kakashi wanted to stop the boy, but he had never said anything about the genin not being able to do that, so he was forced to let it slide. He decided to get the boy back for it later, though.

Shino and Sasuke stood before Kakashi, while Naruto, whom was unconscious at the time, was propped up against a post. Kakashi was worried about the Uzumaki boy, but there was nothing really wrong besides the fact that he was out cold; so he left the boy alone.

"Congratulations, Shino and Sasuke." Kakashi told the two. "You both have acquired a bell." Both the boys nodded at these words.

"However, all of you fail" Kakashi continued. Shino just raised his eyebrows in confusion at his sensei's words. Sasuke, on the other hand, seemed to almost to explode at these words.

"What do you mean?" Sasuke asked angrily "We completed the mission parameters!"

"No, you actually _failed_ the mission parameters." Kakashi replied. "I just didn't tell you the actual parameters. Remember, not everything is as it seems."

"What were the real parameters of the mission?" Shino asked, speaking for the first time that day.

"It was team work" Kakashi told them exasperatedly "You may have all been good on your own, good enough to get a bell, but that wasn't the point of the test. The point was for you to work together as a team."

"Then why two bells?" Sasuke asked angrily "Only two of us can pass that way."

"That was supposed to mislead you from the truth, and make the mission even harder." Kakashi said to Sasuke "It was supposed to make you put the team ahead of yourself. However, all three of you acted selfishly."

"Shino." The genin looked directly at Kakashi evenly and calmly. "You got a bell for yourself, but you didn't help the other two pass the mission." Shino nodded, accepting the responsibility for his failure.

"Sasuke" Sasuke kept his face calm, despite what he knew what was coming. "You stole the bell from Naruto. Those who fail in representing their village may be scum, but those who abandon their teammates are worse than scum. Sasuke almost argued with Kakashi, but held his tongue."

"Now, I can't fail you two, because you each successfully obtained a bell, and completed the named objective" Kakashi said "But your actions prove that you three don't deserve to be ninja. I have decided that I will have you three immediately removed from the program."

The two conscious genin were shocked. Removed from the program? Now they would never be ninja. They would be the greatest disgrace that their clans had ever seen. There had to be some way to undo this, they rationalized. As they were about to argue with Kakashi sensei, Naruto regained conscious.

"Hey guys," Naruto said weakly "Who passed?" Shino and Sasuke couldn't bear to tell him the news. Kakashi, however, felt that it was his duty to tell him.

"You're removed from the program, Naruto" Kakashi said "You're no longer a ninja."

"What?" Naruto exclaimed as strongly as he could, struggling to make it to his feet, but was to weak to. He collapsed to the ground. "Why?"

"You didn't work as a team against me." Kakashi told him. "That's what you were supposed to do."

"But there were only two bells…" Naruto said.

"That was a distraction to hide the real mission from you." Kakashi replied.

"Kakashi sensei, please give us another chance!" Sasuke said worriedly.

Kakashi seemed to think it over for thirty seconds before deciding. "Okay." He told them "The new mission will be to protect Naruto. If I touch him before the time ends, you fail. Eat your lunch now, but Sasuke doesn't get any. Don't break my rules, or there will be consequences" And with that, Kakashi left.

Shino and Naruto pulled out the lunches they had, while Sasuke just sat silently, going without food. As Naruto opened his box of food, he weighed an important decision in his head. Coming to a conclusion, he handed his lunch box to Sasuke. Sasuke looked at him in complete and utter surprise.

"Why?" Sasuke asked "Do you really want to break Kakashi's rules?"

"Well, I'm just the target." Naruto told him "And anyways, I can't even stand. I probably won't be able to for a few more hours. You should eat, because them we're more likely to complete the mission."

Now it was Sasuke who had to come to a decision. On one hand, he would be breaking Kakashi's rules. And Kakashi sensei had told them that there would be consequences. But if he didn't eat, then he would be at a disadvantage. Weighing the things in his head, Sasuke made a decision.

Sasuke accepted the lunch box from Naruto, giving him a quiet "Arigato." Before eating. No more than a few seconds into eating the box, Kakashi returned, furious.

"Why did you break my rules?" The Jounin growled fiercely. The three genin could have sworn that clouds came and blocked out the sun as soon as their sensei uttered those words.

"I'm useless in this mission" Naruto said with as much strength as he could muster, "Sasuke needs to be as strong as he can, so I game him my food. You told us that we needed to put the team ahead of ourselves, right?"

"You…" Kakashi growled. But then he stood up, and the clouds cleared. "Pass!" He said lightly, smiling at the three genin.

"What!" Naruto said "But we broke your rules!"

"Ah, that was just another test, like the first one" Kakashi told them "I always made sure to tell them not to feed someone during lunch. And they followed my rules, so they failed. But you guys risked failing, just to make sure the team could fight. So you pass."

Naruto cheered as strongly as he could, as weak as he was. Sasuke was grinning widely. And, if anyone could see Shino's mouth behind his high collared shirt, they would see that even he was smiling.

A.N.: Thank you all for being so patient with me. I really let you all down.

Recently, after getting my soul back from the accounting trolls (Dilbert reference), I tried typing, but never got the time. So, I wrote out seven pages on paper during classes to make sure that I would have something for you guys. I never got the opportunity to type it up until this weekend. I made it especially long as an apology, and it is about eleven pages long, and 4815 words long. Thank you so much. I should be writing a lot after Christmas, because that's when I'm on break (I get off the 22nd, but I'm busy until the 26th). Bye!

- Philosopher


	6. Chapter 6: Genin Official

Hey, guess what… I'm Back!!!

Well, I have had a very rough time recently. I've been changing schools, and taking care of finals. It has literally been a hell for me with all the changes. But it was worth it. The difference between my old school and the new one is night and day. It was lots of hard work to get in, and I never really took time to come back to this story. However, this is still no excuse for my absence from the site. I am making this extra long to accommodate for the fact that I have been out so long. First, I would like to address new reviews.

Shinigami: I am very disappointed. I was hoping that I would not turn into a troll magnet. For those who you don't know what a troll is, they are people who basically go around with bad ideas(or at least heavily polarized ones), and yell them out to online communities, not caring how annoying they sound. Usually, they get banned from sites. However, this was anonymous. Sasuke and Naruto on the same team are nearly essential for every Naruto fic. The constant rivalry holds together many of the weaker stories out there, and makes the good ones even better. Going straight over someone's head… that seems kinda like a wuss move to me.

FantasyFreak4Life: Your expectations of this fic are sadly, unrealistic. You want him to start his genin career with high chuunin abilities. He has only one strong move so far, Blink Jutsu. Basically, it's a jack-of-all-trades version of the primary lotus. Instead of a devastating offensive mood, you temporarily blast your body with a ridiculous amount of chakra, giving you intense speed and strength for a short burst. Now, depending on who uses it, it has a different rank. But just for the fact that it is detrimental to the user after it wears off, it would be mid-c level at the least. That's pretty good, considering that Sasuke, genius of the year in real Naruto knows only one c rank jutsu, fireball jutsu. I like to keep physical limits as close to real as I can in my fic. It helps me write battle scenes well. If you are disappointed by my answer, then leave. This is just my telling of my story, and you don't need to subscribe.

Now, since I am lazy, I am no longer going to translate Jutsu. If that upsets you, then if you translate the Jutsu, I will edit them into the fic with alacrity. That said, shall we return to the wonderful universe that we all know and love?

After the test, Sasuke and Shino headed home to their respective clans. Naruto, however, was still weak from opening the first gate. Too weak, in fact to even walk unaided. Kakashi decided that while his student was perfectly fine, he could not trust him to get home safely. The fourth's legacy brought much anger on his son, and he didn't want a student dying on him. After Obito died, he never really forgave himself.

So, picking up Naruto and letting his student lean on him, they began to walk away from the training ground, heading towards his manor. For the first few minutes, they were completely silent; Kakashi dwelling in his memories of Obito, Naruto just too exhausted to do anything more than limp down the road aided by Kakashi.

However, the silence was not destined to last. After a few blocks, Naruto gained the strength to start up a conversation with his new sensei.

"Thank you, Kakashi-sensei" Naruto said, softly. He had still not fully regained his strength.

"I'm just doing my duty as your teacher, Naruto." Kakashi replied, "There's no need to thank me for doing my job."

"No, not for that." Naruto told him. "For not going too easy on us. I haven't had to go all out for quite a while. It's the only way to get better. If I hadn't been in the last leg of graduation year, I wouldn't have cared enough about my condition to strive to improve myself."

"Hai." Kakashi said, surprised at the young boy's words. When he was at Naruto's age, he was cocky, and always thought that he knew best. His student seemed to grasp the concept of humility, and it suited him well. "You did well today. Your father would be proud of you."

There was a silence as Naruto drank in the praise, a bittersweet taste due to the fact that he never really knew his father. "Did you know him? Personally?" He asked hopefully.

"Yes." Kakashi replied, smiling under his mask reminiscently "I was on his first genin team." But those words turned Kakashi's mind back towards Obito, and he fell quiet once more. Even after all these years, the many great losses he had been forced to endure struck him deep and hard. He always worried about losing someone close to him again, and because of that, refused to take on a genin team.

Of course, it was not legal for Jounin to not take on at least one team during their career. So once Kakashi realized that he couldn't stop the requests, he decided to just make his test so hard that no one would ever pass. And it worked wonderfully. Until his old teacher's son was assigned to him. He suspected that Sarutobi-sama had something to do with it. However he had enough tact to notice that he shouldn't accuse the great Shodaime of anything so trivial. So he was stuck with training a team.

When he actually thought about it, it didn't seem so bad. He was going to train the last of the Uchiha, something that only he would be good enough pull off. Even the Hyuuga didn't know enough about the mysterious Uchiha Dojutsu specifically to properly train the young genius.

But now, Kakashi was worried. The young Uchiha had trouble working with the other two. He let his ego get in the way. If Kakashi were to properly train him to be a shinobi of the leaf, he would have to ingrain the importance of the mission and cooperation in the boy before anything else. Uchiha Sasuke was probably going to take up most of his time, leaving the other two geniuses alone.

But he didn't worry about them. That Aburame clan was famous for their unique pact with the Kikai bugs. They ate all of the host's chakra, and in turn gave themselves to the clan as their most potent weapon. The clan would probably even insist that any non-essential time for training would be supervised by them. Shino would be good hands for his training.

And Naruto. The boy was probably the most privileged of his three students. He had the entire Uzumaki library at his disposal. Not only did it hold a detailed history of the village and the rest of the known world, it had almost every book that had ever been printed. The Uzumaki were often skilled writers, and the library held countless unique scrolls that no one could fin anywhere else. If the library was sold, the proceeds could probably be used to buy at least two hidden villages.

However, he had no teacher to instruct him. Most of the Clan serfs had left with the Yondaime's death, and all tutors refused to teach the boy. The last Uzumaki had to rely on the limitless knowledge at his fingertips to learn how to be a strong ninja. That alone gave the boy a lot of potential, more than his classmates.

And he wasn't disappointed at the training exercise. He had shown an intelligent use of basic jutsu, and a finesse rarely seen in a fresh from the academy genin. Then there was the Blink Jutsu. That interested Kakashi to no end. Eventually, he decided to ask the boy about it.

"When you took the bell from me," Kakashi said, "What was that Jutsu? It took a lot out of you to use it."

"Hai. It's called Blink Jutsu." Naruto replied "It's really hard for me to do. I spent two years just figuring how to open the first gate, and then another six months after that training to learn how to disperse the chakra throughout my body."

"Impressive." Kakashi replied nonchalantly. But inside, he was very surprise about the boy's answer. The gates were hard to open, and attempts usually resulted in massive organ damage. He had heard rumors that his so-called rival was training a pure taijutsu student that figured out how to open the first two gates already. But he never really bothered to look into those rumors. Now he was very interested in what Gai had been up to. Maybe he would have to pay his team a visit later.

"I think the fatigue is beginning to wear off, sensei." Naruto shifted his weight off of Kakashi, opting to limp forward of his own power.

"Good." Kakashi said, using one hand to lightly massage his shoulder. "So, what do you think of your team?"

"Hmm…" Naruto said, pensively "I think that the Hokage made a massive mistake by putting all three of us together."

"Why do you say that?" Kakashi asked, surprised by the response.

"First, while we may all be a little bit egotistical, each of us are probably the best candidates for the position of team leader." Naruto replied, "We can take care of genin level threats easily, and therefore help out other team members when they need it. Nara Shikamaru might be the best leader out of the graduating group, but he's lazy. I mean, we'll do great, but I'm worried that it will cause an imbalance in team strength in the future."

"I can see the logic behind that." Kakashi said. Once again, the last Uzumaki surprised him with his ingenuity and thoughtfulness. "But what about your teammates?"

"Shino's great." Naruto replied almost immediately. "His communication skills are basic, but that's to be expected from someone from the Aburame clan. Sasuke… I think that he's been a little shaken ever since the Uchiha massacre. I never got any details about it, but it was probably a traumatic experience for him, with all his family dead. He means right, but he still wants to spurn help whenever it's offered."

Kakashi nodded in accord to what his student was saying. He had been thinking things along the very same line about the two, but a bit more cynical than the young genin. He was actually beginning to see a pattern in the boy's thoughts. They were way too optimistic. He seemed to look for the sunny side of things. He would probably blindly trust people if he thought he could trust him. That kind of mindset, while comforting to know it existed, was very dangerous for the young ninja. In a world where cynicality and acting paranoid saved lives, he might not last long.

"In fact, I hope to bring him a peace offering tomorrow," Naruto continued, "I found a wonderful scroll of fire jutsu that I think he would find useful. If I could find something for Shino that would be great. However my choices are limited. Do you have any ideas on anything I could give him so that he would be able to improve himself?"

Shocked, Kakashi did not speak for a second. His student was prepared to give an Uzumaki clan relic to the clan's worst rival, the Uchihas. But realizing that if he didn't respond, his student would probably feel bad. "Perhaps a book on etymology. It would have to be a really advanced text, otherwise it would be considered an insult towards the clan."

"Thanks, Kakashi-sensei." The boy replied cheerfully "I'll try to keep that in mind." After a short pause, Naruto decided to speak to the cyclopean Jounin again. "If you knew my father, does that mean that you knew Kana?"

"Barely." Kakashi said, once more not expecting the boy's words. Kana had been on Arashi's team way back, before he had been born. But he had left after the Yondaime sealed away the Kyuubi in Naruto. For all intents and purposes, Kana was probably dead. How would the young boy know of the mysterious warrior? "I'm surprised that you've even heard of him." He told Naruto, hoping to elicit a response from the boy.

The genin looked at his sensei strangely before speaking. "Kana has been teaching me for the past seven years." After a second of thinking, he continued, "Actually, if it wasn't for him, I probably would never have ever joined the ninja program. He's the best teacher I could ever ask for."

Kakashi was amazed. A kage level ninja was always capable of disappearing off the map entirely for a long while, but this seemed a little too much. He had been living in the heart of Konoha for seven years, and no one noticed it. He would at least have expected Naruto to tell someone about the encounter with one of his father's teammates. Stunned, he continued onwards. As they walked, Naruto gave him details on the kind of training he had received from Kana, from simple taijutsu, to jutsu application. From the information, he gathered, the boy focused on speed and skill, achieving a near chuunin level of grace.

The conversation lasted all the way up to the front gate of the Uzumaki manor. Naruto was still too weak to use any chakra, so he wasn't able to ring the artifact ringer built into the gate. However, Kakashi had often visited the manor when it was in the hands of Naruto's father, so he knew what to do. He approached the ancient bell, and channeled his chakra into it, causing it to ring loudly. Within a minute, the old man came up to the gate.

"Who's there?" He growled, holding up his lantern. As soon as he saw Naruto, he quickly apologized. "Sorry, Uzumaki-sama. I did not see you." After a few seconds, he realized that Naruto was sagging heavily. "Uzumaki-sama! Are you okay?"

"Yes ojii-san," Naruto replied. "Training just got a little out of hand today. I'll be fine by tomorrow. Did Kana return while I was away?"

"Yes he did, Uzumaki-sama. He is in your library." The old man replied. Both Kakashi and Naruto perked up at these words. "Also, he brought someone back with him. An old friend, he said."

Even more than the fact that Kana was back, the information of him bringing someone back with him was truly interesting to the two. Why would he leave to go find someone? Who would such a powerful person want to talk to? Naruto hoped to learn as much as he could before he actually talked to Kana.

"Lead me to him." Naruto said, pushing the unlocked gate open. The old man nodded, turned back to the manor, and walked towards it. Both Naruto and Kakashi followed him in. they both wanted to talk with Kana.

"Is there anything you can tell me about our guest, Ojii-san?" The last Uzumaki asked. Any information he could get would be helpful before he met this person.

"Well, from the way she dresses, she's obviously foreign" the old man started "But she's definitely from here."

"What does that mean, Ojii-san?" Naruto asked. Both of them seem to be mutually exclusive. "How can someone be foreign, but from here at the same time?"

"I know she's here," he replied "Because she has the Uchiha crest tattooed on her left arm. She's from the Uchiha clan."

Both Kakashi and Naruto were stunned at the news. After the Uchiha massacre, the only known Uchiha were Sasuke and Itachi. However, Naruto did not know about the existence of Itachi. Their levels of surprise were nonetheless similar. How could there be another Uchiha left?

"You sure about that?" Kakashi drawled, trying to not sound interested in the whole matter. In fact, this information was even more alarming than the fact that Kana had been hiding in Konoha for all these years.

"Completely." The old man said, nodding his head vigorously. "There used to be an Uchiha woman who visited here all the time, before the Yondaime passed." He looked down, still upset at the great loss after the many years had passed.

"Is there any possibility that Kana's guest and the Uchiha from all those years ago are one and the same?" Naruto asked. Kakashi was impressed with Naruto's attempts to gather more information on the situation.

"Possibly." He replied "It has been 12 years. People can change a lot in that amount of time. But she seems so different from the old one. Our guest seems so energetic and flamboyant, while the lady from all those years ago was quiet, uptight, and seemed almost always sleepy. If she is the same person, something really must have rattled her cage for her to change so completely."

"Well, as you said" Naruto told him "People can change a lot in a span of 12 years." As he walked down the hall, he nodded and smiled at all of the clan serfs that he passed in the main corridor. Ever since Kaka had arrived, they had invited in foreigners to join the Uzumaki clan as serfs. There was little love for the Uzumaki household within Konoha, so they had turned to the immigrants to refill the empty halls. Now, it was bustling with energy as people went to and fro, going on with their responsibilities after paying their respects to the lord.

After a short while, they finally made it to the end of the hall. There, the heavy oaken doors that led to the library were open. And inside were Kana and his guest.

She… she was very exotic. She wore a red dress that stopped halfway down to her knees. Almost all skin, showing, except for her hands, and feet, were wrapped in bandages. Her head had no bandages, and her curly brown hair reached her shoulders. She wore no sandals or shoes, and so her feet were completely bare. On her back, a Kodachi lay in its strap, laying parallel to the ground at her waist level, showing a casual sort of danger to the room.

As soon as they entered, Kana finally noticed the trio. He turned to Naruto, deciding to deal with Kakashi later. "As I'm sure you have noticed, I have returned, Naruto. Also, I've brought a friend."

"I can see that" Naruto replied, smiling politely. However, that was just a mask to hide the maelstrom of thoughts between the surface. However, this turn of events was not going to impede his quest to discover what was happening in the slightest. Turning to Kana's guest, he said, "How should I address you, - "

"Kaida" She replied, smiling softly "Uchiha Kaida."

A.N. Wow… what a fun chapter. This thing took me freaking forever. But I hope that you guys enjoy it. And in case you want to ask who Kaida is, look at chapter one. She's mentioned in there. But don't worry, I'll go into more deal with her character next chapter. Oh, and just to remind you guys, Naruto has no Sharingan or Bloodline. I hope I won't take two whole months to write another chapter.

Edits: Fixed the whole Kakashi situation, both in previous chapters when it contradicts, as well as this one. Also touched up a lot of the sentences. At this point, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and Chapter 6 are done. Before I move on to making Chapter 7, I want to fix Chapter 3, Chapter 4, and Chapter 5. Considering how quickly the first three have gone, I'll probably finish tonight, and get the chapter out on Thursday. If it isn't out by then, wait for the weekend, because I'm busy Friday.

Oh, and sorry about not editing the chapters earlier. I was up skiing with friends. They brought up a laptop, which I edited chapter 6 on. However, I wasn't able to upload at all. We still have no idea why it didn't work. No worries though, it's done now.

People, please review. More reviews means quicker updating from me, which I know you want. Just a pointer, or an encouragement on continuing is good enough. However, if you are a shipper troll who will just yell at me, tell me to give him a special bloodline better than sharingan or byakugan, save your time. I hate trolling. If you want to see a pairing, just tell me what you want, and try to keep it intelligent. If I get "I wan 2 hav NaruSaku cuz it's da bomb," I am not going to be particularly happy. However, as long as it is het, and you aren't venting hate towards a character from Naruto, I will treat your review with respect, and maybe even write you back on your ideas. And remember, the more well thought out is, the more considerate I will be about it.


	7. Chapter 7: Master Plan Revealed

Another chapter for my story is here. I am so sorry that it got out later than I had hoped to get it out. I guess that I just got lost on the road of life… lol. Sorry for stealing that from you, Kakashi-sama.

If you really want the details, it went down like this. I had about a two month long brain-fart where I had no inspiration. In fact, I still don't, but I need to do this one to further it.

Then, and here's the fun part, I got hospitalized for a biking accident. Not only did my face look hideous for a few weeks, I broke my hand as well. I have had it in a sling for quite a while. I'm not even supposed to have it off yet, but it's finals at my school, and I can't really live without typing. So, here I am, about 4 months from my last update, apologetic and humbled for my failures.

Well, I am sorry for not getting this together soon enough. I want to try and get this through, so I can get through to the most important part of the early arcs… the Land of the Waves arc. I know that you guys want to see that out of me, do I'll try to move up more quickly with the updates.

Wandering Violets: Thank you for reviewing on my fic. Also, your advice is very helpful. From now on I will try to look at showing rather than telling when I am writing.

Kakashi just stood there, mouth agape. Not only was there a third true Uchiha alive, it was none other than Uchiha Kaida, the legendary Inferno General. She had led a massive portion of the Konoha shinobi war force during the Great Ninja War. She probably would have been made the Godaime Hokage after Arashi had died, if she hadn't left Konoha. The Copy ninja had no idea why she was here, but if she had returned, it was probably very important.

"Naruto," Kana turned to the boy "Kaida was your father's old teammate. I brought her here to help train you."

Naruto stood there, grinning. His father, considered one of the best ninja of all time, had asked his equally great ex-teammates to make him the greatest ninja possible. There was no doubt that he was going to be the Hokage someday soon.

"Sorry it took us so long, Naruto." Kaida told her teammate's son. "We were held back by an obstacle."

"What kind of trouble could stop someone like the Inferno General and Kana?" Kakashi asked puzzled.

"Her cousin, Itachi" Kana told the Copy Ninja "and his teammate, that Kisame."

Kakashi shook where he stood. That name still struck fear within most of the Konoha ninja privy to the information about him. "Itachi? You mean you fought the traitor…"

Naruto looked up at the three adults, puzzled with what they were saying. "Could someone tell me what you're talking about?"

"You have heard about the Uchiha massacre, right?" Kana asked Naruto.

"Yeah." Naruto replied "But no one ever tells me about it."

Kana opened his mouth, the look on his face indicating that he really didn't want to tell Naruto. But Kaida thought differently. "I'll tell him, Kana." She told him, sighing.

"Well, the Uchiha used to be the most powerful clan in all of Konoha. Ever since the Uzumaki faded into obscurity over fifty years ago, they ruled supreme. Out of that clan came the best ninja in the whole village.

But even among them, there came one who surpassed even their high standards. His name was Uchiha Itachi. He was the greatest genius Konoha had ever seen. He graduated the Konoha academy system at age 7, and fully mastered the Sharingan at eight. He was honored universally by the Uchiha as the epitome of their bloodline. They called him this for good reason. He had achieved Chuunin rank at age 10, three years before most students even graduate academy. By 13, the graduating age for the average shinobi, he was invited into ANBU. Everyone thought that he was going to become the next Hokage.

But what they didn't know was that he was insane. All the pressure that people had put on him for him to succeed had cracked his young mind. It failed to show during his early years, as the pressure was weak.

However, about a half of a year into him being accepted into ANBU, he began to act strangely. They sent his best friend, Uchiha Shisui to watch him and see what was wrong with him. Itachi promptly killed him.

Not long afterwards, he killed all of the Uchiha clan except for me, because I was too well hidden for him to find me."

"But what about Sasuke?" Naruto asked confused "He's still alive, and he's an Uchiha."

Kaida turned towards Naruto, an anxious look on her face. "Who did you say?"

"Uchiha Sasuke" Naruto replied, raising his eyebrows in confusion.

"That's Itachi's little brother…" Kaida said softly. "Poor kid…"

Naruto's grin faded, along with his daydreams of grandeur. And even though he was angry with Sasuke for trying to steal his bell, he felt sorry for him. Naruto had never really known his father personally. The closest thing to family he had nowadays was Kana. To lose Kana would be a hideous blow to him. Without his teacher, mentor, and surrogate uncle, his life would feel like an empty shell. Naruto could not even begin to comprehend how horrible it must have been for Sasuke.

But the grin spread over his face once more, as he had an idea. No, not just any old idea; this one was brilliant beyond comparison. If it worked out, he wouldn't feel so lonely anymore, and he would be able to help out Sasuke at the same time. Naruto mentally patted himself on the back for his brilliant idea.

After last night, Kaida settled into the Uzumaki manor, and Naruto quickly decided that he needed to rest as much as he could, if he wanted to go to team practice the next day. As soon a he entered his bed, the young genin dropped like a stone.

But as always, he rose early in the morning to prepare for the coming day. Without even changing out of the clothes he had worn the day before to the bell training, he half-stumbled into the kitchen. Nodding at one of the cooks in the kitchen, they began to make a bowl of breakfast-style ramen. Naruto rubbed his forehead, trying to remember exactly what happened last night after he got home. So much had happened that he felt like his head was spinning.

And within an instant, it all clicked. The new guest Kaida, who was one of the only Uchiha left, who happened to be Sasuke's cousin. Click. His mind jumped again. Itachi, who had slaughtered Sasuke's family. Why he was all alone in this world. The person who had forced Sasuke to become a cold hearted person who cared only for results. How sorry he felt for his teammate. Click. Naruto remembered his genius plan for fixing it all.

Grinning, Naruto ran out of the kitchen, and returned to his room. Quickly donning a new suit from his closet, he checked his supply pouch to make sure that it was fully stocked. He quickly grabbed a few extra kunai and some trip wire from his supply closet. Turning, Naruto bounded down the stairs, back to the ramen that was waiting for him on the kitchen counter. Naruto looked down at his delicious meal, nodding thanks to the cook who had made his breakfast before digging in.

After slurping up his ramen, Naruto made his final preparations for his day of training before saying goodbye to Kana and Kaida. Before he knew it, he was jumping from rooftop to rooftop towards his team, and Kakashi sensei.

Upon arriving at the training area for the day, Naruto met what he guessed was going to be the usual morning reception. Shino nodded politely in Naruto's direction, while Sasuke just stared at the Uzumaki rather uninterestedly. Naruto took this in stride, trying to hide his smile in anticipation.

The blonde Genin approached Shino, reaching back into his pack, calling out "Hey, Shino, I've got something for you."

The quiet Aburame genius turned to Naruto, giving him an inquisitive look. "Why, Naruto-san?" He asked, inquisitively.

"Well, you know," Naruto replied, smiling. "Since we both graduated from the Academy, and we're both on the same genin team, I just thought it would be right to give everybody a congratulatory present." The Uzumaki's face brightened as his hand brushed the object he was looking for. The boy pulled out a ornate scroll and handed it to Shino.

Puzzled, Shino opened up the scroll, trying to figure out what it was, but after a sentence or two, the quiet boy froze up, standing as still as a rock. Naruto could instantly tell that Shino was acting a little weird, but he still knew very little about the Aburame, and thought that it might just be some weird family thing.

But this continued for a little while, and Naruto started to be worried about his teammate. "Shino, are you okay?" He asked, the worry creeping into his voice.

"Naruto-san…" Shino said, in an, if possible, even quieter voice "Do you know what this scroll is?"

"Sorry, Shino" The Uzumaki said, looking sheepish "It was the most advanced etymology book I could find in the library. It was the only thing that I could think of to give you. Sorry for insulting you."

"What do you mean, Naruto-san?" The Aburame replied ecstatically, at least for the quiet Aburame, "This is the Aburame book of Origin! They made only two copies, a long time ago when the clan was formed. Our copy of the book was destroyed many years ago."

"Really?" Naruto asked, sighing in relief "I was hoping the book wasn't too basic. Thank Kami!"

"This is worth a fortune, Naruto-san" Shino told the young genin "Are you sure you want to give this to me?"

"Of course!" The blond boy replied immediately "I don't have any use for it. It was just sitting in the Uzumaki archive. I'm just glad that you're happy with the scroll."

After solemnly thanking Naruto for giving him the scroll, the Aburame turned away, peering at the archaic writings of the original Aburame clan members. Grinning at the good he had done for Shino, the Uzumaki turned towards Sasuke. The boy was still leaning against the tree. However he was no longer uninterested. The Uchiha's eyes followed Naruto, wondering what the blonde genin had gotten for him.

"Well, Sasuke, your gift is in two parts," Naruto told his teammate "So I'm going to give you the first part now." Sasuke nodded, tensely anticipating the gift he was about to receive.

Naruto once more fished around in his bag until he came across the particular item. Once more, the blond Uzumaki pulled out a scroll, seemingly identical to the one that he had given to Shino. He tossed it to Sasuke, who immediately broke the seal and opened it.

"Advanced Fire jutsu…" Sasuke read aloud.

"Yeah…" Naruto replied "You Uchiha were pretty famous for your fire jutsu, you know. So I thought that this would be useful."

Sasuke was silent as he stared at the scroll, his hands trembling. "What do you know about the Uchiha?" he asked Naruto, anger tainting his voice.

"I know a relative of yours…" Naruto replied, slightly surprised at Sasuke's words "I-"

But before he could say anything, Sasuke's fist was racing towards his face. Completely not expecting the attack, Naruto awkwardly dodged out of the way. Before he could even open his mouth, Sasuke was in the air, dropping like a stone to drive a kick through Naruto's chest. The blonde genin quickly rolled out of the way again, and jumped back to put as much difference as he could between his furious teammate and himself. Almost immediately, Shino moved to intercept the enraged Uchiha, pinning him.

"Sasuke, what was that for?" Naruto breathed, leaning heavily forward, almost collapsing to the ground. "What did I do?"

"Where… is… Uchiha… Itachi…" Sasuke growled sub-humanly.

"I don't know!" Naruto exclaimed, exasperated "I didn't mean him!"

"Then who could it be, when you mentioned a relative of mine?" The avenger replied, "He killed my whole clan… except for me… Now we're the only Uchihas left alive…"

"Your cousin, Uchiha Kaida!" Naruto told his furious teammate "You know, the Inferno General!"

Sasuke froze immediately. "She's… alive?" He asked, visibly relaxing against Shino's arms.

"Yeah she is!" Naruto replied, "Kaida left long before your brother… did what he did. She showed up at my house last night. That news was actually supposed to be your second present."

"Ah…" Sasuke replied, calming down even more. "Thank you. It's good to know that I'm not alone …"

"Would someone care to tell me what you are talking about, Naruto-san, Sasuke-san?" Shino injected into the conversation.

"Want to fill him in, Naruto?" Sasuke asked, "You seem to be pretty familiar with my family history"

"You sure?" Naruto asked, the concern bleeding through his voice.

Sasuke nodded, grinning slightly. "I want to know how much you know about it."

"Fine." The blonde genin grinned slightly. But as he turned to address Shino, his grin quickly faded.

"Well, the Uchiha clan used to be big, right?" Shino nodded quietly, trying to take in what his teammate was telling him. "Well, Sasuke's brother, Itachi was the golden boy of the Uchiha clan. There was never anyone who could really mach him. Graduated the academy at, like, six. Then he got his sharingan at age seven. By age 13, he was in ANBU." Shino rose his eyebrows above his glasses, surprised at the extent of Sasuke's brother's abilities.

"Well, he was really good, right? Better than anyone else in the clan. But, he snapped, and went and killed everyone in the clan, except for Sasuke. Don't know why he spared Sasuke, but he did. Sasuke's cousin, Kaida, left a very long time ago, and wasn't here for the massacre. That's why she's still alive." Shino's eyes rose even further. The story just seemed so incredible that his usually stoic demeanor was broken, even if just for a moment.

"Sasuke-san…" Shino spoke from behind his collar. "I am sorry for your loss. No one should have to go through something that traumatic."

"It's okay…" Sasuke replied "I'm going to kill him, and that will be the end of it for him. I'll kill him, even if it's the last thing I ever do."

"Okay…" Naruto broke in, worrying that this conversation would set the tone for the entire day. "Well, these gifts weren't just to be a congratulatory thing… I also have a proposition for you guys."

"And what would that be?" Shino asked, intrigued.

"Well, as you know, the Uchiha and Uzumaki clans are all but gone. Sasuke may want to invest his career in getting revenge on his brother for slaughtering his family, but I want to make some progress in undoing this…" Naruto said, pausing.

"So am I supposed to presume that you have a plan for this?" Sasuke asked immediately slightly annoyed at Naruto's jab at his ambition.

"Actually yes." Naruto replied. "Clans are usually based on blood relations. However, there is no law stating that you must be of blood relation to be a member of the clan. Technically, anyone can become an honorary member of the clan."

"Are you actually saying…" Shino said quietly, before Naruto cut him off

"Yes! I want to ask you guys to join the Uzumaki clan as honorary members!" The energetic Uzumaki exclaimed.

"Yeah right!" Sasuke snorted in derision. "Why should we join you?"

"Well, I have the resource of the Uzumaki library at my disposal." Naruto replied "As well as the old Archive"

"The Archive?" Shino asked.

"Yes, the Archive" Naruto said "It's a collection of old Chakra Artifacts, and some very rare scrolls, most even more rare than the one I got you. But I can't open it until I turn eighteen, and I have to remain clan head to actually be able to open it."

"So, you have to stay head of the Uzumaki Clan to open the Archive?" Sasuke asked, doubtful, "That sounds pretty convenient for this little plan of yours."

"Well, I wouldn't have any real power over you." Naruto replied, "It's like a partnership. If you join the clan, you get to have unrestricted access to the Uzumaki library, which value has been proven by my gifts. Do you thing I would give you guys those scrolls if I thought they weakened the library's collection? It has countless jutsu, historical records, recipes, you name it! All that knowledge would be a very valuable asset to anyone, not just your average ninja."

"Is there anything beyond slapping Uzumaki onto our names and access to the library?" Sasuke asked, the disbelief still evident in his voice.

"Well, free lodging in the Uzumaki manor, complete with the service of the Clan workers" Naruto said, "I pay them well. They're all pretty nice and loyal."

"Well Naruto-san…" Shino murmured, "I think that I am going to have to turn down your offer, at least for now. This is a pretty important decision, and I know that I can't say yes at this time. However, many thanks for the offer. I will continue considering it, and will let you know if my situation changes."

Naruto nodded. "I understand. I didn't really expect an immediate response from you two. Thank you for not discarding my idea out of hand."

"Well, I have decided" Sasuke stated. Naruto turned, slightly shocked.

"You really have come to a decision?" Naruto asked, almost disbelieving.

"Well, it's more of a counter proposition." Sasuke replied. "I say we have a contest. We both train for one week, then fight. If you win, I join you as part of the Uzumaki clan."

"And if I win?" Naruto really didn't like where this was going.

"You join the Uchiha clan, and give up on the potential of the archive, and help me hunt down Itachi" Sasuke replied.

"No matter what, I'll help you fight Itachi. You have my word on that." Naruto replied.

"But are you still okay with my proposition?" Sasuke asked.

"You're on!" Naruto replied, grinning widely. "And may the best man win!"

"I will." Sasuke replied grinning.

And, at that very moment, the instructor of Team Seven, Hatake Kakashi, appeared in the middle of the group in a cloud of smoke, smiling with his eye.

"Sorry I'm late." He said apologetically "So what'd I miss?"

A.N.: Well, I'm sorry for the bad writing, but what I'm setting up is hard to write. However, I did all this in one session, and that's when I do my best. So, even though I had no strong Inspiration, I just pushed through it, and tried to do the best job I could do with the tools I had at the time.

Wow. What do you guys think of the twist? Inviting classmates to join the Uzumaki Clan as honorary members. Maybe you guys see where I'm going with this, maybe you don't. Or maybe even you guys have formulated your own ideas about what this means in changing the course of Naruto forever (or at least in this fic).

Sorry for this chapter being so short. I wanted it to be around 4000+, but I only got it around 3000. Well, I guess that I'm just going to have to settle for what I make.

For Pairing, I was thinking NaruTema, but not completely sure. Also, completely blank on Sasuke, and maybe even Shino. Just so you know, no Yaoi, and I'm planning for a ShikaHina in the background, that may or may not be noticed.

Remember, Please read and review I never really get many reviews, so I don't feel the pressure of so many rabid fans begging for my next work. I might not just do it for the fans, but the love is sure a heck of a motivator.


	8. Chapter 8: Maim Hand, a new Technique

Well, I'm back in the zone! Now that i'm at a part that I want to write, not only is this brought to you guys earlier, it is of a higher quality. My goal for this before starting out was getting this done in a week or so, just to let you guys know.

Thank you guys so much for telling me that the last chapter didn't suck. I still don't like it, i'll probably just overhaul the thing first chance I get. Anyways, on to Chapter 8

The day's training session went over pretty quickly, going from their meeting point to the hokage's building to receive some mission for the day. While delivering messages was boring, the genin cel did not really complain. They had more important things to look forward to, like training.

Naruto turned away from the Hokage building, planning to head home for training. However, he felt someone's hand on his shoulder. Turning, his bright blue eyes met the onyx of Sasuke's.

"I want to meet Kaida." The Uchiha boy stated rather bluntly. His eyes showed how convinced he was, and that he was not going to let this one go.

After keeping Sasuke's gaze for a second, the blonde Genin nodded "Alright. Maybe she can help you learn a couple of the jutsu on that scroll. Who knows?" Naruto laughed "With her help, you might even find out a way to beat me!"

Sasuke only grunted at this, before both of them took off in the derection of the Uzumaki manor. They leaped almost silently from rooftop to rooftop, making even quicker time than one normally would. They both anticipated what they knew was going to happen.

In short time, they made it to the manor, and were almost instantly ushered inside by the gatekeeper.

"Ojii-san" Naruto asked the gatekeeper "are Kana and Kaida in?" The old man nodded. "Okay. Tell them to meet me in the library. It is very important." The old man nodded in affirmation once again, and turned away to take care of Naruto's orders.

"Nice place..." Sasuke said as they walked down the hallway. As Naruto passed, various workers turned and smiled, bowing to the clan head.

"Yeah, well..." Naruto replied, a hint of a smile on my lips. "It wouldn't be very nice without them... they clean up the place a lot."

"I didn't think that the Uzumaki clan held so many serfs..." The Uchiha told his teammate. "Especially since there's just one of you left..."

"Ah, well, they're not really serfs." Naruto replied to Sasuke. "They're mostly poor immigrants from other countries. A lot from wave, actually. Because Konoha's doing so well right now, there's a massive influx of people trying to get a part of the growth. So, I offer them free room and board, so they don't have to worry about making rent, or finding a house to live in. Hopefully, with my help, they get the opportunity to make a name for themselves. In return, they supply a negligible amount of their earnings, about 1, to pay for food and supplies to further the land plot."

"Wow..." Sasuke murmured "That's a pretty impressive plan. Did you come up with it?"

"The free room and board for just a 1 earning tax yes," Naruto replied "But Kana came up with the idea of soliciting immigrants. Most people here in konoha don't like me for some reason, and they refused point blank to work with me." By the time the conversation had reached this point, they had made their way all the way down the hallway, to the great doors of the library.

Entering, Sasuke took a look around. "Amazing..." the Uchiha. "You said the library was this big, but i didn't really believe you..."

"Not many people I tell do..." Naruto "few people have actually been allowed in here since my father died..."

Right at that moment, both Kana and Kaida walked through the magnificent doorway of the library.

"You called?" Kana asked Naruto immediately. But before Naruto could even respond, he noticed the dark Uchiha boy standing at his side. "Ah... you told him about Kaida, didn't you?"

"Yep." Naruto replied, as if it was obvious. "I thought that he would like to meet his cousin. Also, I need to ask her a favor."

"And what would that be?" Kaida asked, mildly interested. "Let me guess: you want me to train him."

"Well, that would be pretty helpful," Naruto told her "Since we just made a very important wager..." And Naruto filled the two in pretty quickly.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Kana yelled at Naruto. "This is a pretty important decision. If you lose the fight, you'll be throwing away the whole reason your father sacrificed yourself. He died so that the village could continue; and so you could rebuild the Uzumaki clan!"

"What better way to!" Naruto replied, exasperatedly. "I need to take some chances to succeed, and if this works, it'll be a major step twoards me re-creating the clan. Blood relations have proved almost useless. If I create a talent-based clan, more like an organization, then I lose many of the weaknesses of the common clan structure. It'll be a big leap forward."

"Very well, it's your decision." Kana said "But if you lose, I expect that you will keep your word."

"All right, I do understand the consequences." Naruto replied "I wouldn't have accepted if I didn't."

"Ok, this is all well and good," Kaida butted in. "But you have the advantage. You have the Uzumaki libray and Kana, while Sasuke has me and..."

"One of the more important Fire Jutsu scrolls in the library." Naruto told her "More than enough to teach him over the course of a year, much less a week."

"Very well then." Kaida replied. "I say that we get started. We have only six actual days to train as much as we can. Sasuke." The young genin, mostly forgotten during the conversation, turned to his cousin. "We need to go back to your house now. It's been a while since I've been to the Uchiha sector. Could you lead me there?"

"Hai." Sasuke replied. Both of them turned, and headed out of the library.

Naruto turned to Kana. "Kana, I need you to..." he began, but Kana quickly cut him off.

"Talk to Kakashi? Already done." The man replied quickly. Before Naruto could ask how he knew, he divulged "I was there in the morning. When I found out you took those things out of the library, I decided to follow you, and find out. After your practice, I talked to Kakashi and filled him in. He's going to excuse the whole team from missions and team training for the week. But he expects all three of you to spend the whole time training."

The blonde Uzumaki nodded "Hai. Should we get started right now? Every minuite counts."

"Sure," Kana grinned. Naruto was just like his father. Always ready to get down and do some work. "But lets just talk theory now. It's late, and I want you to get up early each day to train."

"Okay." Naruto replied. "So, what's the subject material? I've been curious about the technique scroll you gave me. It just showed me to concentrate chakra in my hand."

"Well, that's just step one of the training." Kana said cryptically "Step two you'll find out about tomorrow."

"Then what are we going to talk about if not technique?" Naruto asked his teacher, the puzzled expression evident upon his face.

""I want to hear about this clan idea of yours." Kana told the boy. "This is dangerous territory, and I want to make sure that you know what you are doing before you step into it."

"Okay." Naruto replied "Where should I start?"

The night had passed quickly. Naruto told Kana about the basic structure for his clan idea, and how he thought it was better than a blood relation clan. Kana was impressed with the boy's scholarly theory. He had spent the majority of his early years in that library, and it definitely was going to come in handy for the young Uzumaki.

After he shared his idea, Naruto quickly retired to bed. Whatever the training was to be, he knew it was going to be vigorous. Kana was always like that. The training was hard, but really fun. He just couldn't wait until he would be able to start.

The moon fell, and the sun rose. Day had begun. Naruto's alarm clock rang loudly, jarring the sleepy boy awake almost immediately. The young Uzumaki had hale a mind to just crush the ting and make it stop forever, but thought better of it. There was training with Kana to do, and the prospect of it was more than enough to make him turn his attention away from the clock. Naruto smiled. Today was going to be a good day.

As for his morning ritual, the boy dressed and made sure that all his supplies were packed. It was too early for anyone to be up in the kitchen, so Naruto made himself an unusually spartan toast and glass of milk. After completing his meal, he made his way out of the clan building to the spacious forest behind it. Kana was waiting, fully dressed as well.

"Good." Kana told Naruto "I thought you were going to be late."

"Sorry," Naruto replied "Had to make myself some breakfast." Kana grunted in reply.

"For tomorrow, set your clock a little earlier, okay?" Kana asked the young Uzumaki "I want to get in as much time as possible for training."

"Okay." Naruto nodded. "So, what are we going to do today?"

"Well, first, I need to teach you a new jutsu." Kana told the boy "It'll help the training go much faster." Naruto turned his head inquisitively at these words. As if reading his ming, Kana continued. "It's a special kind of Bunshin, called Kage Bunshin."

"And what does it do?" The inquisitive genin asked. "Beyond a normal Bunshin?"

"First of all, It's a solid clone." Kana replied "They can land hits on their own. However, they get knocked out pretty easily. One good hit and they're gone."

"And why am I learning them?" Naruto asked, not seeing where his teacher was going with this.

"Well, a Kage Bunshin is made by creating a shadow imprint of your chakra into a simple construct." Kana told his young student. "Most of the chakra is used to form a simple version of your mind, mostly only battle tactics."

"So, it can do jutsu, just like the origional?" Naruto asked, still puzzled.

"The important part is that some of the chakra returns to the owner," Kana replied, explaining further "Specifically the part that makes up the clone's mind."

"Once the clone is destroyed, it sends its memories back to the owner?" Naruto asked. Kana nodded. "So... if you have them all trying to learn a jutsu, it's like cutting the training time down massively..."

"Bingo." Kana stated simply. "But there is a drawback. It takes a lot of chakra to make the Kage Bunshin. Add in the chakra required for the jutsu, and even some Chuunin have trouble even trying it. It's a hard way to train."

"Then why am I doing it?" Naruto asked. "If Chuunin can't even do it, then how could I even try to do it without killing yself in the process?"

"You," Kana replied "Are different. You have way more chakra than a kid your age should have. That's why we started training earlier than other children. Your chakra capacity was almost ready when I met you. That's also why you have so much trouble with academy Jutsu. They use so little chakra that you have a hard time counting out that amount. The fact that you passed the test, is either a miracle, or a testament to all the effort you put in training with me. You should do this training fine."

"Okay... I guess..." Naruto said, still not really beleiving Kana.

"Now for a demonstration." Kana said, almost instantly making the cross seal. Four clones popped out behind him. "It's just that seal. Pump chakra after the seal is formed. One Kage Bunshin is worth about 20 Bunshins, Chakra wise."

Naruto put his hands together to form the seal. It looked so simple, but actually forming the seal was another matter. It took over five minuites of positioning before he felt the seal correctly formed. And, just like his instructor said, he pumped chakra into the seal.

Behind him, two Kage Bunshins arrived in a puff of smoke. For a few seconds, Naruto had to lean over and breathe heavily. He had to convert a lot more stamina in a lot shorter time than he was used to.

Kana noticed this almost immediately. "Don't worry, Naruto," he told the blonde genin, "It's just conversion shock. The new level of chakra expenditure takes time to get used to. By the end of the week, you won't have any trouble making four." Naruto looked up, still breathing heavily, and grinned.

"Next step?" The young Uzumaki asked, finally controlling his breath.

"Okay. You did do what the scroll told you, right?" Kana asked. Naruto nodded. "Well in that, you learned how to concentrate massive chakra into your hands." Kana said "But, since you were holding it there, it just fored open your tenketsu with a burst of kinetic force."

"Yeah, it did explode," Naruto conceded. "But what does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, that was a massive amount of energy. What do you think would have happened if you directed that energy?" Kana asked. The Uzumaki heir's eyes widened when he realized what his teacher was saying.

"So, if If I hold it until right before it forces my tenketsu are forced open, and release it all out of one..." Naruto started.

"...you have a devestating attack that's hard to counter. That's a move called Maim Hand. It's a devestating Ninjutsu/Taijutsu combination." Kaida finished. "So, with all this new information, I want you to try something. You and your cloned are going to concentrate chakra in your hand, then release it at the last second into one of the trees. Try to release it out of only one tenketsu. When you can control it to only one point, i'll give you your next task."

All of the Narutos nodded, and found a tree to work at. They all began concentrating chakra into one of their hands. Then, all at the same time, they tried to release their chakra at the last second. The result was... interesting, to say the least.

Instead of releasing it from just one tenketsu in their hand, the energy went bursting out in a large cone shape. Instead of a pinpoint attack, the Narutos had just performed a mass blunt attack on the tree. There was no hole through a tree, just a dent about a foot into the tree, and with a five foot radius.

"Harder than it sounds, right?" Kana asked amusingly. "That large energy takes a lot to control. If you had forced it through only one tenketsu, you probably would have damaged your hand pretty badly. Keep on doing it. Eventually, you'll get it right."

"How long do you think it'll take?" Naruto asked. "More importantly, will I finish it within the week?"

"I'm guessing it'll take the whole week, if you push yourself." Kana replied. "Any extra time you'll just keep on doing it. It'll expand your chakra reserves a _lot_."

Naruto just nodded, and continued working. Once again his clones, along with himself, concentrated their chakra into a hand, and let the force out into a new tree. The results were the same. Naruto panted as he tried to regain his energy once more. All the energy ha was using was really wearing him down.

"Keep at it." Kana said "Who knows, maybe you'll even make some progress by the end of the day."

And Naruto kept at it. Charge, release, charge, release. Every so often, the clones would expire. The young genin would take a short breather before remaking some clones, and continuing the assault on the trees. Also, once in a while, the exerted force would be just a little more concentrated than the others, and the tree would snap in half. Morning passed to noon, and noon passed to night, and Naruto kept on going. He didn't stop for meals, just for water breaks. The practice made him sweat like a pig.

At the end of the day, the blonde Uzumaki laid passed out on the ground. All that exertion of making clones over and over again just to use a massively draining attack, while berely resting took a lot out of him. Kana carried the boy back to his room to let him sleep.

This continued in Naruto's training for four of the five days that he had to train. Every day, from dawn until dusk, without meals or breaks, he would practice the move over and over again. At the end of the day, every day, he would pass out, exhausted from the training. As the days passed, he created more and more clones to work with. Each day, Naruto became more and more worried each day that he was not going to complete his goal by the last day.

Naruto came out for the last day. He had forced the release points to a fraction of the origional, and was practicing with 9 clones of himself at a time. Kana still watched the boy practice, silently standing, watching.

Naruto released the charge once more, and the clones exploded out of existence. Then, like always, any new information from the clones came rushing into his head. Right then, he came up with a brilliant idea.

Making the cross-shaped seal, Naruto created nine more clones of himself. After quickly giving them instructions, they all nodded and made their way to an unused tree. They all began to channel the chakra into their hands as usual. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary from one who had watched him practice before.

However, something was different this time. One Naruto released before another, in a succession. The last one had the same result as the run before, but each one preceeding it had a hole with a smaller radius, and a deeper hole. The first three had the same width, but the third one was the only one that actually went through the hole. Naruto dismissed the clones grinning.

Kana stood there, clapping slowly and grinning. "Bravo, Naruto. You figured out the trick."

"I don't need to concentrate the maximum amount of chakra into my hands." Naruto said "That just stretches my potential, but it'll never meet the kind of power as a concentrated blast could, even if you use only a third of the chakra."

"You got it." Kana said "The maximum is not always the best way to use a jutsu. You'll usually waste the energy for nothing."

"But why didn't you tell me?" Naruto asked, exasperated "I could have finished in a day or two, then I could have learned a lot more jutsu with the extra time!"

"Two reasons." Kana replied "Firstly, you need to learn how to do jutsu on your own. If you figure the things out yourself, you're more likely to retain the knowlege than if someone tells you. Also, it helps you learn other jutsu faster."

"And the second?" Naruto asked interestedly.

"Well, now you can realistically use the two new techniques." Kana told the young Uzumaki. "By constantly expending all that chakra and regenerating it, you build up your reserves, and expand your chakra output levels. That means you can use more powerful jutsu more often by training it like this. Tomorrow, you'll have an easy time fighting, because you'll be fresh, and won't be using these two jutsu as heavily you have had the past days."

"Do you think that I can beat Sasuke?" Naruto asked.

"You can definitely beat Sasuke from a week ago." Kana said "Current Sasuke, I don't know. Depending on how hard she trains him, it can go either way. Also, if she just spends the week forcing out his Sharingan, you'll pummel the kid into the ground."

"Why?" Naruto was confused. "Wasn't the Sharingan really powerful? He'll just copy my moves."

"Well, let's look at your moves," Kana said "Kawarimi, Bunshin, Henge. All academy jutsu. He allready knows all of them. Blink Jutsu. You have to open an inner gate for that. He can't copy it. Kage Bunshin and Maim Hand. Both muscle moves. You need lots of Chakra and Stamina to pull those off. Sasuke doesn't have the Chakra of the Stamina to pull those off. His Sharingan would be useless against you. But I doubt that that's the case."

"Why do you say that?" Naruto asked.

"Ask Kaida." Kana replied cryptically "She might tell you." Walking away, Kana turned "Why don't you get some food and go to bed. You've barely eaten all week."

"Hai" Naruto replied. The young Uzumaki looked down at his stomach. It was growling loudly. Laughing, the blonde genin ran back to the house to eat. Tomorrow was going to be an important day.

A.N. Well, this was finished over the course of two days. I think this is a new record for update time. Yay me!

Sorry for any mispellings. There's something wrong with my computer, and the spellcheck is uninstalled. I can't re-install it, so I have to be very careful when I type.

Well, we've broken the 30,000 barrier for words, which I am very proud of. I never really thought that this fic would carry on. But now, I'm a third done with this fic. To let you guys know, I am planning sequels, if I ever finish. Pleease review. Even though only two people reviewed, i thought I owed this to you guys. The more you review, the more I type after school.


	9. Chapter 9: Revelations and Battles

Thyrin: It's good to hear from you again. I would have told you, but I was busy. I do like the clicking thing as well. I'm hoping to forge a unique style of writing that sets myself apart from other authors. The lack of eating is not a mistake; just wait and read this chapter.

The "Meh." Review: Yeah, I know that I had a lot of spelling errors. I have no spellchecker to use, so the only advantage of typing this over writing it is that I can put it on Fan fiction. Actually, Thyrin used to be my beta reader, but she couldn't fill her obligations as quickly as I would have liked due to school pressure. So I stopped the Beta Reading. However, If anyone is interested in the position, just PM me. Here's what I'm looking for in a Beta Reader:

1: Will run my draft through the spellchecker, and find out if there are any mixed words (Like witch and which).

2: Get it back to me in no more than a day or two.

3: Will, if there is time, give some ideas on sentence structure. Adding a replacement sentence right after the original sentence in parentheses would do this.

(Beginning)

After his strenuous week of training with Kana, Naruto and his sensei went down to Ichiraku's to eat up before the big match. The blonde genin ate bowl after bowl of ramen. Ichiraku himself was pleasantly surprised with his favorite customer's binge. The boy had come to visit after strenuous training before, but that time, he seemed like a bottomless pit, with a pocket to match.

After re-filling his tank, the last Uzumaki and Kana returned to the manor. Within minutes of arriving, the boy headed to his room and began to sleep. Many of the manor inhabitants were surprised with this, seeing as it was barely past lunch. But after almost a week of training until exhaustion with only a light breakfast, there was nothing else that the boy really could do.

(later)

The afternoon passed into evening, which gave way to the night. The night fled with the rising of the sun, bringing day upon the Uzumaki manor. The blonde owner of this great building rolled over in his sleep, a slight frown on his face. His breathing was heavy, and he was tossing and turning.

And with a small scream, he woke up sweating. Taking effort to calm down his breathing, Naruto tried to erase the images from his head. However, no matter how hard he tried, the images persisted in his head. It was there: the Nine-tailed Fox. It clawed at him, ripping him apart. Then, once the body was no more than a pile of bloody rags, it extricated his heart from it and ate it, relishing in the taste.

Naruto had never had a real nightmare before, and this one disturbed him like no other. In some scrolls on dream theory, he learned that Dreams are really no more than the subconscious trying to rationalize itself to the conscience. Nightmares were built upon the fears of a person, what lied deeply within them, tearing them apart from the inside without the conscious mind even truly feeling the extent. _Click_. The rationalization of what happened snapped Naruto's mind back into clear thought.

But turning back to his mind, he only realized that he needed to find answers to his questions. _Click._ The Kyuubi no Kitsune, or the Nine Tailed Fox, was a subject not very covered in the Uzumaki library. He knew that it was a massively powerful elemental of fire. However, it was mentally unstable. But rather than destroying the entire world, it slept quite often.

_Click._ The last time it awoke, it headed directly for Konoha. His father was Hokage at the time. In order to defeat it, he had to sacrifice himself. In doing so, he saved the village, fulfilling his dream of being Hokage. But he had to leave his son, the last Uzumaki, behind on his final journey.

Strangely, Naruto shed no tears. The blonde genin never really knew his father. There was no emotional attachment to his father. All he had was what other people knew about him, and not many were close to the enigmatic Fourth Hokage. Kana, possibly his closest friend was reluctant to speak about his former teammate. Naruto didn't press, knowing that he probably had a reason for not telling him.

So, was he really just beginning to get emotional backlash from his subconscious? Naruto really didn't think that was the root of his problems. However, before he could delve further into his knowledge, the door to his room slid open.

"You okay, Naruto?" Kana asked, "I heard you scream."

Surprised, Naruto replied, "Really? I didn't think that it was that loud."

"Oh, I just have good hearing." Kana told the young boy. "And, I was awake. So, Naruto, did you just have a bad dream?"

Naruto quickly explained the dream to Kana, attempting to give details as liberally as possible. The further he tried to describe his nightmare, the more his teacher frowned. Worried, Naruto gave him his thoughts on the matter. Kana just shook his head at this. Naruto could feel the regret coming from his father's former teammate.

"I never guessed that it would progress so quickly..." Kana muttered to himself "We knew nothing about it, but this is still much faster than we hoped. This probably means trouble. If only Jiraya was here, I could..."

"What are you talking about, Kana-sensei?" Naruto asked, confused. "And what does this have to do with Jiraya-sama? Is it something about my father?"

"I guess that it's better for me to explain it to you rather than some stranger... But I still don't like it." Kana told the boy. "Think of it this way... how could you do all that training for six days straight from sun up to sun down without eating anything except for a small snack in the morning?"

"You know, I never really thought of that..." Naruto said mystified. "Well, the reason we eat food is to gain energy. Did my body somehow bypass the need for food, and I started burning chakra to keep going?"

"That wouldn't be possible any human to do." Kana said to the last Uzumaki "Using chakra alone to sustain a body for about a day would take up more chakra than your father ever had. It's impractical, to say the least."

"So, maybe..." Naruto started, but then it started coming together. _Click._ No _human_ could fuel the amount of power that had been used to pull off what he did. But, what did that mean? _Click. _The Nine Tailed Fox was supposedly an infinite well of chakra energy in the form of an elemental force. But that would mean that his father didn't kill the Kitsune. _Click. _If something was supposedly an infinite power source, how did his father kill it? _Click. _Naruto's eyes widened in shock as he realized what Kana was poking at.

"You can't mean…" The young Uzumaki whispered. "That the Nine Tailed Fox is…"

"Sealed up inside of you?" Kana replied almost nonchalantly. "I bet you figured out what I meant by no _human_ could facilitate that kind of energy."

"But why?" Naruto asked, "Why seal the fox into me?"

"Consider this," Kana explained to the boy, "The Kyuubi no Kitsune, quite possibly the most powerful forces on the planet, is bearing down on the village you spent your entire life building up. The only way to destroy it is to seal it into a newborn baby, and hope the chakra coils mesh inextricably. That way the death of the container will hopefully drag the demon with it.

Also, you know what they say about your father. He was one of the most kind and compassionate people ever known. The newborn baby had to be _new_. Not only were you pretty much the only one available, he couldn't seal this into another's child with a clear conscience. It had to be you."

"So, the nightmares are from this?" Naruto asked.

"Well, he built the seal to slowly force it's chakra to meld with yours." Kana told him "And its personality is imprinted in the chakra. So, by drawing out so much of its power, you've allowed it to influence you mind at its weakest, during dreams. If it progresses any further, it may be able to actually influence your conscious mind." Seeing the young Uzumaki worried, Kana calmly told him, "Don't worry, it'll take a lot of effort before that actually happens to you."

"Is there any way to reverse the process?" Naruto asked. "I'm worried that it'll affect my abilities if I have trouble sleeping."

"There are ways to seal the chakra," Kana started, "But that'll just weaken you and prevent you from using the chakra. Your best bet is to use a ridiculous amount of its chakra to stretch your chakra pathways, then seal it away so completely that it's pretty much dead."

"Can you do that, Kana?" Naruto asked "That sounds like my best bet right now."

"I'm not much of a seal practitioner," Kana told Naruto "But I can put a barrier that'll stop the chakra and prevent the dreams, but it'll most likely impede your own chakra as well. I would have to do it after your fight with Sasuke."

"Speaking of that," Naruto started, "How much longer until the fight? I need to get ready."

Kana looked out the window at the sun, and turned back to Naruto. "I'd say that it's about three in the morning. The match is at eight, so you have five hours to prepare. Go get something to eat, and then get warmed up. I just want to go over a few things with you."

Naruto nodded, and jumped out of his bed to get dressed. Kana left the blonde genin's room to take care of his own goals. Naruto took off his pajamas, and put on the black pants and vest that he normally wore. After those were on, he strapped on his ninja supply pouch to his right leg. Finally, Naruto opened up his closet to grab his orange cloak.

As he opened up his closet, the most curious thing caught his eye. Where he normally hung up his bright orange cloak, there was another cloak. Instead of the bright orange pattern, it was a white cloak, with red flames. The inner lining was a dark maroon.

As he pulled the cloak out of the closet, a small note fell to the ground. Naruto picked it up, and flipped it over. It read:

_Naruto,_

_Since you have decided to start taking clan matters into your own hands, I thought that the clan head's cloak would be an appropriate gift to celebrate this._

_- Kana_

Naruto smiled softly at the kind gift from Kana. He quickly donned it. Once finished, he put on his fingerless, metal backed gloves, and his sandals. Turning back to his nightstand, the last Uzumaki put on his headband, the metal shining in the early morning light. Finished dressing, the young genin walked out the door of his room, heading for the kitchen.

(later)

After making himself a hearty breakfast meal of ramen, Naruto cleaned up his cooking supplies in the kitchen, and headed out of the back of the manner. From there, he followed the long path that led to his training ground.

Due to the extensive training he had undertaken, many of the trees constituting the training ground had been destroyed. However, when he returned to it, the old broken trees were removed, and new saplings were beginning to grow in their place. Naruto stared, his mouth slightly agape at the strange scene.

"I fixed up the training ground." Kana stated bluntly from behind his student. "These ones will grow to be massive pretty quickly. Give it a few months and they'll be at full size. Consider it my present for completing the training."

"But you already gave me a present." Naruto replied, gesturing toward his new cloak. "Thank you very much by the way. It looks really nice."

"He would have wanted you to wear it." Kana said. "Actually, it was orange with red flames, but he changed it to white when he became clan head. I thought you would have preferred the white one."

Naruto just nodded and smiled. There had been so much change recently that he felt a little in shock. First, rather than being dead, the Kyuubi no Kitsune was sealed up inside of him. Then, it was starting to take over his dreams. And finally, he got his father's cloak.

"Well," Kana yelled, breaking the boy from his reverie "Let's get you warmed up for your match. We only have four hours. We'll start with the basics, and work up."

And so, they started. First, Naruto stretched out his muscles to prevent cramping, then got to work on his sprints. From sprints, he moved into push-ups and sit-ups. Soon, the boy was warmed up physically. After his body was prepared, it was time to do chakra use exercises.

"First," Kana told Naruto "I have one hundred kunai on me. I am going to throw them at you. You need to dodge them until I have used up every last one of them. You are permitted to use the academy basics: Kawarimi, Bunshin, and Henge, but no other jutsu are permitted. Is that understood?" As soon as Naruto nodded, both of them disappeared in a blur.

Naruto jumped back into one of the trees behind him. He reached out, trying to see if he could find Kana. He knew that he didn't need to wait long, though. His teacher liked to hit hard and fast. So, as quickly as he could, he prepared Kawarimi on himself, switching with a log on the other side of the clearing. The last Uzumaki waited for his teacher to make a move.

He wasn't disappointed. Seconds after he switched with the log, he heard five dull thuds hit his replacement, then a poof of smoke as it turned back into its original form. Naruto jumped out into the opening, forming five bunshin around him. All of them pulled out kunai out of their supply pouches.

Six more kunai burst out of the tree line. The five clones dispersed upon contact, while the real Naruto blocked the one heading for him. And so, the training continued, with Kana throwing lethal kunai at his student, all of which were expertly dodged by the last Uzumaki. Soon, Kana depleted his supply of kunai.

"The warm up is done, Naruto." Kana told his student. "Now, I have to show you a couple of tricks that you can use in the fight."

(later)

"It's time to go, Naruto." Kana called out. "We have one more hour." Naruto nodded as Kana emerged from the foliage.

Without a sound, the two jumped away from the training ground, silently making their way across the hidden village of Konoha to the team's training field.

(later)

Kana and Naruto arrived at the training ground forty-five minutes before the match started. Unusually, Kakashi was already there, apparently waiting for them to show up. Shino was there as well, standing stoically silent. Kana and Naruto split up to speak to their respective peers.

Fifteen minutes after their arrival, Kaida and Sasuke jumped into the training area. Instead of his usual clothing, Sasuke wore standard navy blue ninja pants, and his shirt was sleeveless. Covering his arms were a swath of bandages, stopping at the hands, which were gloved.

The two boys turned to face each other, silently acknowledging the other. Naruto looked into Sasuke's eyes, and found a cold burning fire, showing his resolve and silent determination. In Naruto's, Sasuke saw an energetic drive to succeed, backed up with determination and analysis.

To break the silence, Kakashi called out, "Now that we're all here, should we start?" Both Naruto and Sasuke nodded. Kana and the others backed away from the two combatants, giving them some room to fight.

"These are the rules," Kakashi told the two boys "Any jutsu are acceptable. Victory is determined by concession or knockout. I am allowed to end the match at any time if I see a clear-cut winner. Understand?" Both boys nodded once more, never taking their eyes off the other. "Alright. Go!"

And with Kakashi's start, the two were off to the races. Sasuke kicked back into the air, Naruto doing the same. While sailing in the air, Sasuke began flipping through a multitude of hand signals. Taking a deep breath, the last Uchiha belched prodigious flames towards Naruto. The blonde genin countered with a Kawarimi.

As soon as he landed, Naruto charged towards Sasuke. The raven-haired genin kept on spitting fireballs at his opponent, forcing him to dodge backwards, away from the flames. In a vain attempt, Naruto launched off a Kunai, which his opponent dismissed with barely any effort. The Uchiha smirked as he stood in his position.

"Why don't you just give up, Naruto?" Sasuke called out "I control the fight right now. The range of my techniques greatly exceeds yours. How do you expect to win if you can't land a move?"

"I won't give up." Naruto told his opponent defiantly. "I am fighting for the honor of my father." As soon as those words left his mouth, Naruto made a cross shaped seal with hands. With a poof of smoke, five copies of himself appeared right behind him. "And if you control the range, then I'll just have to figure out how I'm going to get close to you."

The five clones charged forward, each evenly spaced from each other. Making the seals, Sasuke once more spit flames, quickly dispatching the clones sent out to fight him. "Is that all you've got, Naruto? I could do this all day!"

"Nah, I'm just warming up!" Naruto growled back almost gleefully. "How about this!" Once more forming the seal, Naruto formed twenty clones. Immediately, they charged towards Sasuke, not even bothering to attack their target in some formation. Sasuke frowned, and jumped back right before all of the clones hit where he was. From the air, he formed the seals once more, dispatching all twenty of them.

"Why is Naruto-san doing that?" Shino asked Kana. "Can't he see that it's not working? Sasuke is going to just keep on doing that. It is a was a waste of energy."

"Don't worry," Kana replied "He has so many aces up his sleeve that he won't have any trouble winning the match."

And so, the fight continued. Naruto once more made five clones to attack. They charged up towards Sasuke. Sasuke inhaled to make the fireballs, but before he could dispatch the clones, all of them exploded in a burst of chakra, throwing Sasuke against a tree.

Naruto called out to Sasuke, who was in the process of extricating himself from the tree. "Remember that 'jutsu' that I practiced the first time we met Kakashi? Well, when you have a clone do that, they use up all their chakra in the explosion. It doesn't have the kick of an exploding tag, but exploding tags can't exactly corner a target before deciding to explode, can they?"

"Then I guess it's time that I really got serious about this fight, don't you think?" Sasuke yelled back, the smirk almost audible. Standing up, he pulled his gloves off his hands, and put them in his pocket. "Fire seal: Release!"

Almost instantly, the last Uchiha's arms burst aflame, a strong red color. However, the Uchiha was not in pain, and the flames did not go past his arms.

"Like this?" Sasuke called out. "Kana helped me make them. The bandages on my arms were really filled with my chakra, sealed away. Then, when I release the chakra, it gives off flames. Of course, it's limited to how much you put into it, so it'll last only about two minutes. I think that that's enough to beat you."

Naruto growled in response, "Oh, yeah? Well, then, bring it!" The last Uzumaki began to charge the chakra into his hands. "I guess it's time for me to go all out as well!"

Screaming at the top of their lungs, the two genin charged towards each other. Sasuke swung his flaming arms at Naruto, attempting to catch the other boy's clothing aflame, but to no avail. Naruto let off both off the charge in his hand right at Sasuke's chest. Realizing what his opponent was doing, Sasuke brought his flaming arms up to block. The force from Naruto's jutsu still threw Sasuke a good twenty feet into the air.

Twisting in the air to gracefully land on his feet, Sasuke panted silently. "What the hell was that?" He called almost incredulously.

"It's called maim hand." Naruto replied. "If you get hit by one, it'll probably end the fight right there and then."

"Well, then," Sasuke replied "Same goes for my attack. So whoever hits first is the winner."

Once more, the boys clashed. Sasuke came in, expertly tying to hit his opponent. However this time, Sasuke's attack was so furious that Naruto had to throw away his offensive just to dodge the punches thrown at him. The blonde genin fought to get as much distance between him and his opponent as possible.

"Those arms are powerful," Naruto admitted to his opponent. "I think I'm going to have to take a leaf out of your book." The last Uzumaki formed the cross-shaped hand seal, and twenty clones poofed into existence. "Whoever controls the range, controls the fight, right?"

All of the Naruto clones charged at Sasuke. The boy was able to dispatch six of them before the rest of them detonated, throwing him up into the air. This time, he wasn't so lucky as to be able to land gracefully. The difference in power from five to fourteen clones was what made the last Uchiha fall from the air, to hit the ground, hard. The boy coughed in shock from the pain.

Naruto walked over to stand over his opponent, and looked into the last Uchiha's half-closed eyes. He charged up the chakra into his hand, and placed it on Sasuke's chest, using one foot to pin down an arm. "Please give up," he said to his opponent "This could kill you if it goes through, and I don't want you to die. I just want you to join me. Think. We could rebuild the names of our clans, together. That's all I want from you."

Kakashi came over and inspected the Uchiha. "Sasuke, I have to stop the fight. You're half conscious, and Naruto's got you as good as having a kunai to your throat." Turning back to the other three, Kakashi called. "Winner by defeat, Naruto!"

Kana smiled to himself. He turned to Kaida, "Your boy had no chance. He was going to lose from the start."

"Well, your kid had the fourth's legacy on his side." Kaida said, trying to reference the Kyuubi with Shino catching on "That was more than anything I could give Sasuke."

"Don't worry about that, it didn't play a factor in this fight." Kana replied. "I would have noticed it if he decided to use it."

By that time, Naruto returned, with Kakashi carrying Sasuke. "The poor boy's out." Kakashi told the two. "We should take him to the hospital."

"No." Naruto said. "We will take him to the Uzumaki manor. Now that he is a clan member, we can take care of him ourselves. The hospital is unneeded. In fact, why don't we all take Sasuke there, then go to Ichiraku's afterwards? My treat!" The others just nodded as his offer.

As they all headed away from the training field, a hint of a smile played upon Naruto's lips. Everything was going very good. His plan was coming together, as he had acquired a corner piece. His dream was beginning to fall into place. Quite soon, it would be achieved as he worked to help make Konoha great, just like his father did.

(End of Chapter)

A.N. Well, sorry for the new (later) things. I have just realized that my usual breakup pattern doesn't work on fan fiction. If you guys were curious, I kinda made the leaf symbol by doing this: . I would make a line of those to break up sections. Now that I know that that doesn't work, I'm going to try to fix that in all of my chapters in the fic.

Also, if you haven't noticed, my spell check is fixed. I am still interested in getting a beta reader for the fic. I will be accepting up to two. Just E-mail me if you're interested. In case you don't know what my e-mail is, it's I am going to do the land of the mist Arc, almost definitely. However, I am definitely planning that I'll make it quite different from the one in the anime and manga. In general, much of the canon arcs will be included, but they will be heavily warped and changed. For example, for the chuunin arc, I'll probably switch around the matches to make it more interesting.

And finally, Please Review! I have thirty five reviews, which is nice, but I know it could be many more. I have almost twenty thousand hits, so I know that some people aren't reviewing. Remember, reviewing more means I write more!


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